There Is No Pride In Love
by SwordFish II
Summary: ON HOLD Faye's being chased down by a pyscho bounty, Spike has come back from the dead to help her... Alexa is a mystery, and the Red Dragons are at war. The past and future mix to bring old and new characters 2gether in one last battle. SXF
1. Decision (Prologue)

**Discliaimer**: I do not own CB.   
  
A/N- Sorry this is so long (got carried away)... But I really tried, please no harsh flames though they are allowed.... As you know Spike is extremely hard to wirte, and I know he is very OOC, but I tried....   
  
**There Is No Pride In Love**  
  
_I've had bad dreams too many times,  
to think that they don't mean much any more.  
Fine times have gone and left my sad home,  
friends who once cared just walk out my door.  
~Eric Kaz and Libby Titus~  
  
_

Prologue  
_~Decision~_  
  


The world was glossy, it didn't really seem real. But then again it had never seemed that way anyway. My fingers were numb, my heart felt frozen, and the past invincibility of knowing if I died, if I gave up the life that was once nothing more than a dream that soon became a nightmare without a point, came all rushing back to me like a tidal wave of exhaustion. If I died now I wouldn't be loosing much. I'd just wake up and dream again, and if my eyes didn't open... They just didn't open.   
  
I held her in my arms, her hair spread over my hands like liquid gold as blood mingled in the rain on the concrete at my feet. Her face was upturned as red streaked over the creamy skin, marring what had already be secretly marred inside and what had been trying to heal so desperately on a cold heart trying to feel warm. I wasn't able to heal her, but she had healed me somehow, gave me a dream and love, and now it was being washed away in the rain as if it all really didn't matter.  
  
Her body lay out on gray cement as I cradled her head in my arms, lingering on the warmness that I would miss forever that was rapidly slipping from my grasp. Everything had been edged on gray with her, around her, next to her. She had always been dangerous, she had always been vulnerable, and death had chased her into gray forever. It chased me, it chased everyone.   
  
Her mouth was slightly opened, waiting for a breath, a movement that never came. I touched her hair wiped it from her face, and entangled my fingers in the silken gold they held. Her eyes, they weren't quite closed, they stared past dark lashes into a place I wanted to go now, wanted to descend to, or was it ascend?   
  
_It's all just a dream... _Her words echoed in my head.  
  
The skies stared down at me, hating me, laughing at me, cursing me. They damned me, they damned her, and the scoffed at us, they scoffed at everything she meant to me and took her away so fast I never got to say good-bye.  
  
The rain wasn't letting up, the winds weren't quieting as I lost her soul to something that had been inevitable from the start. The buildings loomed over my shoulders, prison bars of the world I wanted to escape... That I had once thought I was going to escape with her by my side. But now it would have to be a different world to escape, one unknown to me even as I tried to find something left inside her vacant eyes that once were warm but now had gone cold.  
  
She had been my dream, she had been the point, she had been the key, and I had based too much on her frail shoulders. But I had believed...  
  
Vicious...  
  
I had believed in him too!   
  
It hurt to think that I would never hear her voice again, never hear her laughter, or her cries. Memories, mine and only mine, would be the lost remnants of what we had had... and what we had never had a chance to take. But it hurt even more to think I had trusted in him, I had believed unknowingly that through the deception, and the love that he had tainted, he had taken, and he had envied, there was some ground for peace... Someday in my wildest dreams.   
  
But there was no room for peace as I stood, my hair plastered to my face, the heat of my eyes purging the happiness I had known only for a short while once again in her presence. The flashes of the past mingled with the truth of now as my eyes stared foreword, the skies closing in on me with a certain warning I chose to ignore.   
  
I would never forgive him for taking her.   
  
Most of my life I had been dead, most of my life I had been invincible to everything because I hadn't cared enough to think what would happen if I died. I had been invincible before her because I hadn't feared death. But then she walked in and then I found I had reason to fear death- if I died I wouldn't have her by my side...  
  
I had cared...  
  
I had dreamed...  
  
I had run...  
  
But then I had lost...  
  
And now I hurt and hated.  
  
She had been the best thing in my life. The only good thing in my life.  
  
I touched my arm where some of her blood had streaked over it. The rain was falling hard, my clothes were running with water as I stared at the red stain. It was fading as rain took over washed it clean, as the last of my grief washed away, and like the blood had been replaced with water, my grief had been replaced with hatred.   
  
Vicious...   
  
I couldn't feel my body, but somehow I was running through the door I had come from, down the stairs of Annie's store I had shot from without a second thought. My own gun rested in my hand like a cold remembrance of what I was leaving behind...and what I was facing...   
  
The hate, it was all I could feel, all I could see as I fired at a figure that loomed in the shadows of my vision, of my mind that worked and decided without my consent, without my heart in each action. Each decision I didn't feel like I was making more than just moving along with, letting the hate flow, the rage boil and take over.  
  
They had killed her... He had killed my dream, and they were _all _going to die for what they took from me.   
  
I was on the landing of the stairs, chest tight, gun ready to fire seeing images of the past through my left eye as I shot another one of the Red Dragon's agents that stood on the first landing before me. Julia racing up behind me as we ran, bullets raining over my head and through her golden hair ... golden hair now covered in blood...images raced through me, in me, hurt me, hated me...all his fault! Everything I saw, all the blood, everything was because of him... And the hate, I couldn't deny it, every time I pulled the trigger on my gun, the blood that was spilled was his in my eyes.  
  
The stairway filled with enemies as I shot and dodged bullets meant to retaliate life for life, not death for life.  
  
"The party's over, bastards," I muttered as I pulled the trigger over and over again. I heard the firing and felt nothing but raw steam and rage that burned my limbs and scorched the air around me. All the while I saw her beside me, kissing me, holding me, loving me... making my life complete somehow...  
  
No tears burned my cheeks, and for every tear I didn't cry, didn't know how to cry, the fire burned brighter in my soul. Blood, bright and red, like hers flashed through present and past as the darkness of the hallway filled with it, drenched the innocence no longer a sanctuary here. Bullets rained past me, I couldn't tell who was shooting, who was there, how many there were, but I didn't care, I couldn't care! I was invincible once again like the past, I had nothing more to loose and nothing more to gain...except the satisfied feeling of knowing his blood ran cold before mine.  
  
Then the rush stopped, the screams, the yells I heard in my mind stopped, and I was alone, I was totally alone with sanity to coldly shun me away. I stared at the empty hallway, bullet scars of my own bullets streaking the walls but no other traces of bullets shared mine. No bodies lay on the broken ground, no silence was ever greater even as the wooden beam above me creaked, the winds blowing as broken glass clattered somewhere in the distance.   
  
I had been living a memory in the present. Everything I had seen, everything I had shot at had been everything I had been running away from but now had to face...  
  
_Lucky me, _I thought bitterly asI stared at the gun in my hand. The clip was empty. I had been shooting blanks for some time.   
  
A gap in my chest opened and I sighed. I couldn't just accept the dream was ending... But it was, whether I liked it or not... My mind couldn't accept it, my past couldn't accept it...  
  
_Time to go end it,_ I thought softly. _Time to accept that the dream has ended. _  
  
She was waiting for me, and to get to her I'd die a million deaths. I already died more than once to see her again.  
  
But there was one last place to go, one last good-bye to make, one I wasn't really going to say but one that I knew would be known.   
  
Annie's store gave me one last cold embrace as the wind blew one more time.  
  
I walked on the broken glass, past Annie's closed eyes and lifeless body, turning away with a silent prayer and then a finality that told me it was all in the past now, I needed to live the future. I stared at the scattered books, pages askew, covers torn to pieces, and then I met the eyes of Mao Yenrei, even in a simple faded photograph on a torn wall across from me he stared through me- he always did. For a second I stared at him, seeing him in my mind's eye as the father I never had, the mentor I always needed, my friend that didn't hate me. And then I saw Annie next to him, smiling, eyes bright not lifeless as they were now. They were both dead, and soon I knew I would be just like them- another faded photograph, a faded memory lost to time.   
  
I walked passed the clutter, the blood, the bodies of my past. I slipped out of the door, reaching in my coat for an extra clip, replacing my empty one quickly as I walked out of my past and finally accepted my future- the beginning of the destruction of the Red Dragons, and the end of the battle that ended my dream, and thus began my death...  


  
~*~*~*~  


The food was disgusting, but it was the last time I was going to eat it so it was the best meal I ever ate. I began walking away after describing myself and my life, my love and my beliefs descriptively through a story of cats.  
  
In spite of myself I laughed. My heart and everything inside wanted to be forgotten if only for a little while. And cats, I _hated_ cats, and I had used them to describe my life. But _why _not cats? I asked myself. They were smart, they had nine lives and I had ten million... at least I _had_ ten million.   
  
Our laughter faded away.   
  
The silence started then, filling the Bebop's living room the way no noise loud enough ever could.  
  
"Hey, Spike, I just want to ask you one thing," Jet said softly, seriousness invading my world of small peace.   
  
I stopped, not answering, my eyes hidden as I kept my hands buried deep into my pockets.   
  
"Is it for the girl?"   
  
I stared at him then, took him in for what he was. A run down cop who knew his shit, a bounty hunter who was no better than I was, another human being, another person to place my trust in. The only true friend I ever had. His metal arm gleamed, his blue eyes intense as they waited for my answer, not wanting to look at me, knowing that if he stared into my eyes that good-bye's would not be enough to say all the things we should.   
  
"She's dead. There's nothing I can do for her now." I said turning and walking away, Julia's eyes flashing through my mind, her touch, her smell, her voice already fading in my mind like an old record that lost it's shimmer and glamor.   
  
I walked through the door and found a gun neatly pointed at my head a second later. I didn't flinch. I knew who it was, and I didn't care about her enough to shrink away. I knew she wouldn't kill me even if she was uncertain herself. I stared at the wall in front of me and refused to gaze into her eyes that wanted to look into mine and find the truth that wasn't there.   
  
"Where are you going?" Her voice was full of accusation as if everything that happened had been my fault. "_Why _are you going?" Her voice was gritty with emotion, emotion I would have rather have not known about. But I couldn't feel anymore, I was numb to everything except the hate, the silent passive feelings of knowing it would all come down to one thing, death."You once told me to forget the past because it doesn't matter." She shook her head as if trying to clear it before gazing at me with hate. "But _you're_ the one still tied to the past, Spike!"   
  
I turned to her, faced her head on with emotions cold and bleak and pushed my face close to hers. The past of yesterdays played over my left eye, seething into my soul, trying to break the ice there. "Look at my eyes, Faye," I said softly but sternly. She tried to turn away, scared of the fact that she was actually looking there, the depths of the bastard who was apparently ruining her life. "One of them is fake because I lost it in an accident." My voice was soft, lifeless. "Since then I've been seeing the past in one eye and the present in the other so I thought I could see only patches of reality, never the whole picture." I had seen, I had known, I had lived everything, and deep down I didn't want to know it would all end someday. Deep down I didn't want to believe Julia would go away and leave me with a hate so strong the only way to take it away would be to kill _him_.   
  
The patches of reality mixed with my dream and the past I wanted to escape but couldn't.   
  
Faye's emerald eyes filled with tears. I caused so many in my life and yet hers effected me like I had seen none in my life. "Don't tell me things like that," she said lying. She wanted to know, but she didn't want to know and understand and then say good-bye. "You've never told me anything about yourself don't start now!"  
  
But it was too late, I started, I had to finish. I saw the images in my mind, held on to them like I had nothing else to hold on to. "I felt like I was living a dream I'd never wake up from," I said distantly, Julia's words echoed in my mind like a forgotten prayer. _Its all a dream_.... Then a flash of light and I saw her face, white and pale, streaked with blood. "Before I knew it the dream was all over." I smiled disdainfully as if accepting when I hardly wanted to as I pulled my face away from Faye's, satisfied that even if she didn't understand, she knew, now, the man I was inside.   
  
I began to walk away.   
  
"My memory finally came back." She said softly.   
  
I stopped.   
  
"But nothing good came of it. There was no place for me to return to."   
  
_No place to go but the forgotten places in our minds, _I thought idly.   
  
"This was the only place I could go to. Now, you're leaving just like that!" Bitterness filled the air. "_Why _are you going? _Where_ are you going to go? What are you going to do? Throw your life away like it was nothing?!" Her voice rose to a note of desperation that tried to reach my heart, but it was too late my heart was gone, swallowed by a hole so big it consumed even my humanity.   
  
I couldn't catch the hold of her pain, I didn't want it. But it didn't matter anymore, death mattered. If I died then I knew it was all worth it to live for Julia. I had to die to know that I lived, to know that the dream could end and that I could not wake up from it. "I'm not going there to die." I said harshly. Then my tone changed for a wistful reason I barely understood. Julia's face was so close in memory.... "I'm going to find out if I am truly alive." Julia smiled, waved, laughed. "I have to do it, Faye." I said with determination that sought to make her understand.   
  
I heard the gun click as I began to walk away, heard the shots but didn't flinch. She wasn't going to be the one to kill me... no she was just another person hurt in my life.   
  


~*~*~*~  


  
So all that I thought of as I stared into his black eyes of nothingness, destruction surrounding our final battle that needed no words to know we were both going to die tonight. His sword lay under my hand, blood running down my body, so many dead because he wanted me to fight him, wanted me to kill him or resurrect what I represented in death- Life.   
  
Hate, rage, regret, they suffocated the air, made it hard to breathe. The heat of anger rose in me, seethed out my eyes, flared out my nose, bit my tongue and made it bleed as my wounds cried for justice.  
  
"Julia is dead." I said with so much hatred, so much conviction that it didn't even cross my mind that her demise might have been my fault. "Let's finish it," I ground out through my teeth, overriding the pain my body screamed to me.   
  
I threw him his swords and he threw me my gun.   
  
He slashed.   
  
I shot.   
  
Blood circled the air as if it owned it.   
  
He fell.   
  
He did not get up.   
  
For a while I stared down at his dead body, knowing that it was done, that the blood slashed across my open stomach was the end of me, if only I could just give up, give up the dream that had turned to a nightmare that didn't want me there anymore. He was dead, my once loyal friend was dead, but I didn't care. It was over.   
  
My dream was ending...  
  
I walked down the stairs, smiling, knowing that all the dreams I ever lived and ever gave up was nothing now. Pain didn't matter, the one big ache that my body had become didn't seem real anymore. I was wandering on the edges of life, ready to fall. Death didn't care how long it took for me to fall as long as I fell, but I didn't care either way. I closed my eyes, opened them, smiled as I stared at the few watching me and pulled my gun out, not knowing it was only my fingers aiming not a weapon. I was seeing the past again, seeing Vicious as his eyes narrowed when we reached for our weapons. "Bang," I said imagining him falling one more time, reliving one more past that I could finally give up.   
  
Then I fell into oblivion.   
  


~*~*~*~  
  


_The light was warm, I tried to turn away. But when I opened my eyes the pain was gone and I saw Julia, her eyes pleading with me to stay away, to not go towards her. We were surrounded by light, the whole world was a silver glow of nothing and as I looked down at myself I realized I wasn't really there, just transparently visible.   
  
I reached for Julia whose form was just as translucent. Something filled me, peace perhaps, that I could finally be with her, finally hold her freely.   
  
She shook her head, golden hair flying around like expensive waves, too rich for my meager fingers.   
  
Frustrated, I reached for her again but she only shook her head in the same response.   
  
I want to be with you, I tried to shout but no words echoed around me, only silence, dead silence that made me deaf.   
  
She shook her head again and began to fade, arms outstretched as if she wanted one last embrace, one last touch before we said good-bye one more time- before we parted for another eternity. My heart ached for her, my soul shouted that this wasn't fair, that even in after life we couldn't be together.  
  
Then I fell into blackness and all I knew was the longing I had for her to be by my side once again...  
  
"A choice, you have a choice," a voice with an elemental sound said softly as if waking me from a sleep so dark and deep that only coaxing would awaken the dreamer.  
  
I could feel myself, but not really. My body was there but it wasn't, I could feel it but I couldn't. What? I asked in my mind.   
  
Then I saw the images. Faye, Jet, Ein, Ed and .... Shin? They were all suffering, I felt their pain, felt everything so forcefully that I cried out and cursed so loudly the silence that was once loud turned quiet and angry that I invaded it's space.   
  
Blood, screams, hurt, everything that belonged to the other world that wasn't mine became mine in that instant. I tried to shake my head, shouted for the images to stop, but they kept coming, the pain increasing in a form that wasn't there but was known.  
  
"Stay here," the voice cut through the chaos, the blood, the screams, the death as my body vibrated with pain, not my own. "And your friends meet this fate." After another second the images vanished along with the pain that still vibrated through my bones.  
  
"Leave here and you forfeit..." The voice trailed off but in the darkness I saw Julia, form white and coming closer until she was close enough to touch. Her eyes were sad, her tears splintering my heart shattered and pieced together so many times it was pointless to even try to break or fix it anymore. "There is a good chance you may never see her after this," said the voice softly.  
  
I could never forfeit her. I could never risk never to see her again.. But then I saw Jet, I saw Faye, I saw Shin, I saw all that I would be able to prevent. A duty that I was obligated to fulfill but didn't want to.  
  
She saw me trying to make the decision and then she was reaching for me, touching my arm, reassuring me for some reason. I wasn't leaving, though. Didn't she know she didn't have to reassure me? And then I saw something her eyes, and I couldn't place it.   
  
She wanted me to go...  
  
I shook my head. I couldn't, I wouldn't leave her again. We had this chance to be happy why not take it? Why not be selfish just this once?   
  
She shook her head.   
  
Because we can't be, her eyes said. She touched my cheek and I grabbed for her hand and placed mine over hers. I kissed her palm as she smiled sadly at me. One more time I was saying good-bye. But her eyes turned back to the reassuring look. We'd find each other again, we would.   
  
Keep believing just like I kept dreaming when we were alive. Keep believing that when I went I could look foreword to her arms holding me for eternity.   
  
I decided.  
  
She faded. And I reached to late for a kiss that was already gone.  
  
"You have decided." The voice said softly.   
  
I tried not to let bitter thoughts encircle my heart.   
  
"You will be called back to the arms of Death when you fulfill your obligation." The voice spoke with force, but there was and undertone of pity.   
  
I don't want your damn pity, I thought.   
  
"I never gave it." The voice bit back angrily and threw me into a wind that spun me in circles, head over feet, painfully as I slowly lost consciousness.   
  
  
  
A/N_ no time to look over.... sorry.... ^_^;;;;  
  
  
  
_


	2. Rain

_Disclaimer- CB isn't mine.   
  
A/N- Thank you for all the great reviews, I seriously didn't think I was going to get any for this fic. Umm I ranted again….sorry ^_^;;;; Oh this has got some graphic violence in it, stay back young readers!!   
****_  
There Is No Pride In Love   
  
  


_Chapter One   
Rain   
_  


**TWO YEARS AFTER SPIKE'S "DEATH" **  
  
The rain fell down the streets, over the figures that stood against the night, dark eyes cast by shadows surrounding the corners as children played, drinking in what little light they could find in smiles. Cars flew by, raindrops flying against raindrops as a single figure stood out against the black and white of gray. She wasn't part of the world, she was never part of it to begin with. Her experiences separated her from them, the normal people.   
  
But she didn't like to let that show. To them, on the outside, she was just as normal as they were, and that's what she wanted them to think.   
  
Faye Valentine walked down the left side of the street, her black cowboy hat preventing any rain from smearing down her face as her bent head leant her face to the shadows the hat provided. Her green eyes glowed through gray as she stared ahead, searching and looking with narrowed centers and radiant anger in their depths. The figures around her passed her like black and white shadows that she paid no notice to, as far as she was concerned the only sounds were her own footsteps echoing on the pavement covered in silver rain below her black boots.   
  
Through the years she had become very good at ignoring what was there right in front of her face. The clouds above her loomed over her shoulders as she ignored the fact that they threatened her with fate. After all, she was one of the best candidates to outdo fate and tally all her stakes so high the only choice was to win. She was a master at gambling, and whether it was Poker or Life she was sure she would win. She was still as cocky as ever, or at least everyone around her thought she was though she often had her doubts, had her fears, had her pains though she hid them quite well.   
  
She'd lost once to life, she'd lost so much that one time that the fear of loosing something like that again had never truly dulled away in her heart.   
  
Raindrops fell along her black leather coat as she walked, cars flying by, splashing water onto her as she dug her fingers deep into the pockets of her worn jeans seeking the heat of being warm even when her jeans themselves had been drenched cold for some time now. Her white shirt was soaked through and was almost transparent, but she could have cared less about that or the stares she received from the people around her as whispers filled the air she merely shook them away like they were flies.   
  
She'd been walking for some time, three hours to be exact, and two of those hours she'd been running, or at least trying to run, away from three pursuers. She was being followed; she'd guessed that when she had seen three men all in the same uniform looking at her from across the street some time ago. It had taken her several minutes for her to realize why the uniforms they wore looked so familiar. An image of a man with silver hair and hard black eyes sitting in an Opera booth, a dead Mao Yenrei next to her, had entered her mind, the silver haired man's uniform the same as the men following her now.   
  
A pain and fear had never truly healed that memory away though it was covered by other thoughts, secretly hidden in her heart and mind.   
  
Cars passed over the three figures that brought her past that, she, at first, had thought them to be an illusion, merely an after effect of being on Mars where everything had happened. After awhile of walking and finding one on the other side of the street and one behind her pacing her steps, the other obviously not far away, she had begun to get scared and then intolerably angry. More then once she had tried to walk up to one the men and give them a piece of her mind, but they had all but run, the lowly cowards! So now she had given up, finding no real threat in their presence yet self-reassuringly fingering the gun in her coat pocket every once and awhile.   
  
Besides they were not her concern at the moment nor were countless memories and past pains. But somehow, without even trying she thought of his two different colored eyes, his green hair, his serious voice, and his smartass attitude. But before the wounds of yesterday reopened she shook them away hard. She was sorry he died, she was sorry he left and his body was never found, but there was nothing she could do about it, there was no reason for her to think about him and pick at scabs long healed. But if they were so healed why were the scabs still there to be picked at? She shook her head.   
  
The man by the name of Rain Falcon was all that entered her mind even through the harboring fear circling through her body and Spike's memory that should have been forgotten two years ago. Rain was a new bounty the ISSP had yet to release to the public but had released to Jet. Faye had volunteered to go the amount of the bounty almost making her fall out of her seat when Jet had shown her it.   
  
"240,000,000 woolongs! What this guy do?" She had said reading Rain's profile, her green eyes wide as she read, the fan in the Bebop's living room circled the air with normal comfort as she sat on top the coffee table. "Wanted for twenty murders on Venus and ten on Mars," she had recited with a mummer.   
  
Jet had been standing against the doorway, arms folded as he waited until she was done. "This guy is hot stuff, Faye. The bounty is high, he may be very dangerous."   
  
"Are you saying I can't handle him?" Faye had asked stubbornly even as she swept up her long purple hair in a ponytail, dusting off her worn jeans as she stood, and then swiftly grabbing her leather coat that she had previously thrown carelessly on the yellow couch. She put it on finding she had grown quite cold, her eyes darting to the fan as if it was all its fault that she was cold.   
  
"Think about it, Faye. It could be suicide chasing this guy, especially since all his murders were women." Jet had pointed out as Faye turned and looked at him coolly. She had grown older over the two years since Spike had left Her green eyes looked more mature, her features had turned more focused, more acute, and her attitude changed a little more than he would have expected. But she still had turned out to be another Spike in his life. She was just another stubborn mule who wouldn't listen to any reasoning but her own just as Spike had been. There was only one difference and that was that Spike had seemed to have a certain logic behind his reasoning. Faye seemed to have only greed, or so he thought. Who the hell knew what went on in Faye Valentine's head?   
  
For a second the room had gone quiet as Jet thought of Spike and old wounds oozed bloody memories that still hit him hard despite time. Then she spoke, knowing that he was hurting inside but knowing it was her best time to escape his lectures and escape her own memories. "Set the coordinates to Mars, that was where he was last seen."     
  
It had taken a while for Jet to understand she meant Rain and not Spike and he had only blankly nodded and gone to set the coordinates muttering about how the youth didn't respect the aspects of those who were older than themselves. She frowned after him at the fact that he hadn't offered to go with her, but scolded herself for even thinking she needed him. Spike's death had taught her many things, and one was not to rely on comrades too much. They would most likely let you down in the end.   
  
Ten hours later she had found herself searching for three hours that produced nothing but rain and cold shivers with a little bit of fear on top of it. She was about ready to give up, her fingers clenching and unclenching as the wind blew around her face, something inside her heart chilling as she tried to forget the feel of eyes on her back. The wind blew harder, yelling as if she really wanted to hear what it said, as if she really cared. Then, as if angry at being ignore, the wind blew extra hard and her hat flew off her head leaving her dry purple hair vulnerable to the cold unforgiving rain.   
  
"Damnitt," she muttered as she turned to go after it, eyes burning with green rage. People walked passed her hat making her even more angry as she struggled to get it, probably looking like an idiot in the process, the rain deciding to start to come down in sheets as she grabbed for it. Her patience was thin, as the wind blew her hat down the muddy sidewalk, past peoples' feet who ignored her vain efforts as she cursed and swore at the ignorance of people.  Lightening struck the air and lit up the darkness and made black the light as she jumped, startled, glancing at the sky as she stood straight like a wet angel with long purple hair streaking down her face. The hell with the hat, she was going to go back to the Bebop, the hell with the bounty, she was cold and hungry, and tired.   
  
Thunder echoed in her ears as she turned to leave and found she could barely see two steps in front of her. The rain was like being underwater as she struggled to see through the blankets of water pouring down her face. Suddenly she felt a tap on her shoulder and when she turned she found a figure holding her hat out towards her, the figure's face barely visible as she grabbed her hat and slammed it on her head, muttering a thank you to the man in front of her. She could barely hear her own voice over the rain echoing in her ears and on the ground at her feet that she could barely see through the water in her eyes. Her hat sagged with the weight of water it had soaked up, but she could care less, at least it was back on her head and keeping the rain off her face.   
  
The man seemed to smile and took out an umbrella, opening it and holding it over her as well as him. Without the rain between them Faye could see his face perfectly. Brown hair, wet and matted against a high forehead, deep blue eyes cold and warm at the same time, lips soft and sensual, a strong nose and high cheek bones- a model of a perfect man stared down at her. He wore a brown trench coat, a black shirt, and khakis; both soaked through just like her own clothes. Rain Falcon…   
  
She smiled, knowing that her lips were trembling with sudden chill, fear resounding through her as she tried to control the beating of her heart. "Hi, thanks," she said to him again, motioning to the umbrella above her head.   
  
He smiled back at her, his eyes lighting up with an inner light as he said your welcome. "It's not everyday that I get to help a beautiful woman in distress." His voice was smooth, soft, nothing like a killer. The rain fell around them like a curtain that made her feel unreal, like they were in their own private world and no one was there to interrupt. "I noticed that you were walking around the block for awhile. What are you doing out here for so long, walking the same block over and over again without even an umbrella?" He asked as he began to walk taking her arm as if to ensure her safety.   
  
A mix of feelings melted her as she tried to understand what was going on. The mass murderer, Rain Falcon, was holding her arm like a gentleman, a true man that knew what manners were. She felt cut off but at the same time totally aware that he was holding her arm, totally aware that he was next to her, laughing and smiling as if they were best friends. And the worst thing was that she was talking back, not knowing why, but enjoying his company despite the fact he was a murderer.  "Looking for someone, I suppose." She tried to make up a lie. "He stood me up," she said smiling up into his eyes that were higher up than hers. He was only about a head taller than she was but the way he looked at her made her believe he was on the same level as she was.   
  
Is this why he's so dangerous? She wondered. He can rope his victims in so easily with a manner of a sane person but then he goes psycho and kills them. Am I the next victim?   
  
She let him lead her, not knowing where they were going as he looked ahead, blue eyes warm, the rain making their walk private, secret to the skies that couldn't see past the clouds. "Why would anyone want to stand someone as pretty as you up?" He asked glancing down at her with laughter in his eyes. He sounded so normal as if he weren't a murderer, but he was! She had to remember he wasn't normal, and he wasn't as sweet as he appeared to be.     
  
She shrugged as she blushed, cursing herself for taking his remarks as seriously as she was. Then she pulled her arm away from his, angry that he could catch her so easily into his trap, perhaps the same trap he had used on his other victims. But the mere act of trusting also made her realize just how much she wanted love. She wanted it so badly that she would even unconsciously try to find it in a murderer.   
  
He seemed hurt when she pulled away but she ignored that fact and walked beside him, telling herself that murderers were the best kind of actors there were, they knew exactly what masks to wear to hide who they really were. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name," she said brushing the purple hair from her face and slightly rubbing the arm he had held in his as if trying to wipe the memory of him away. A faint hope that the man next to her wasn't the one she was looking for scarcely ran through her heart as she strived to find her own mask in which to hide behind.   
  
He turned and she followed him, where they were going, still a mystery hidden behind the deep silver vail of water, the soft sound and smell of the rain searching to calm her nerves. She could see the outline of buildings around her, the sidewalks as the rain decided to let up just a little. But everything was still a blur, something like a nightmare thrown into a twisted world. "Rain, Rain Falcon, and you are?"   
  
She shrugged absently not really paying attention to him but more to the surroundings she was trying to see through. The name registered as she found her cold-hearted mask to hide behind. Indifference her key card as she searched to find some sort of calmness in the chaos that she found herself in the lack of it. "Faye Valentine, a very common name in this world," she said softly, barely knowing if she said it out loud or not.   
  
The rain let up a little more and she saw buildings were on either side of them. They were in an alleyway, garbage and trash scattering the road below her, the puddles slowly becoming visible as the rain slowed to a trickle. She felt a shiver run down her spine unconsciously, she felt aloof from the world now, the streets were so quite save for the small animals that scurried out of a box here and there as they walked.  "Where are we?" She asked as if he was going to tell her a straight answer. She looked up at him then and looked into his eyes that were looking straight ahead.   
  
He then turned to her and what she saw in his face made her skin crawl, made her whole heart stop. His eyes had changed color, they were a silver blue and barely even visible. His smile was still warm and friendly but it looked changed somehow, evil and lustful as his teeth clenched together, grinding as the left over rain on his face trailed down his cheeks like tears he didn't seem to know how to cry. He knew she was after him, that fact was in his surreal eyes. He was playing cat and mouse, and she was playing hunter and hunted. Which was the prey and which was the hunter didn't really matter in the next instant. They were now two hunters that refused to be hunted but instead chose to fight.   
  
She looked ahead trying to find an escape route, but only finding a brick wall ahead of her that was becoming closer and closer, the rain almost letting up to a stand still as if time was commanded to stop just to see what would happen. She didn't like the game she felt he was playing; it had become very unsettling. She looked back up at him, his smile almost completely gone as his eyes watched the brick wall come closer and closer, calm so eerie settling around her shoulders as the darkness etched into fine lines of reality, the last bit of blurred rain fading away like mist.   
  
She took a deep breath and stared at the wall, her heart jumping as she watched it come closer. Two more steps… One more step… Stop.   
  
She forced herself to be calm and stare at the wall in front of her. When she spoke her voice was cold, undeniably voice of emotion. "Rain Falcon, you're under arrest for twenty murders on Venus and ten murders here on Mars." She recited the words as fear faded into a cold piece of ice sitting in her stomach uncomfortably.   
  
"Eleven," he said, his voice still soft, still sensual as he faced the wall, not looking at her, his silver blue eyes seeming to glow out of the corner of her eye.   
  
"Eleven?" She asked focusing on the lines in the bricks before her and not the fear inside her, chilling her as if she were standing in the middle of Antarctica without a stich of clothing.   
  
He turned slowly to her and she turned slowly to him, his lips held no smile, his eyes gone so cold and desolate as sparks flew in their silver depths. "Eleven murders here on Mars," he said as if they were talking gossip and he was merely arguing what she heard against what he heard.   
  
She stared at him with confused green eyes, fear melting into her depths as she discreetly reached her hand into her pocket, the cool metal of her gun gliding over her fingertips as she grabbed for it.   
  
She watched as he smiled, his lips stretching with ugly lines that seemed to break his face and make him monstrous, demonic as he looked down somewhere between the space that separated them. "You'll be the eleventh," he hissed with an animal growl that startled her and raised the hair on her neck.   
  
She pulled out her gun and put pressure on the trigger, but at that second he looked up, his eyes gone totally white, his smile wide and animal-like. He didn't seem human anymore, the man he seemed before was totally gone as if he had never been there. She gasped, she didn't know what else to do, but then intellect took control and she shot. Whatever the hell he was, because he sure as hell wasn't human, he was still going to go down. The sound of gunfire echoed but missed, or more correctly the bullet hit where the target was supposed to be and where she was supposed to be had suddenly become empty space. Lightening struck into a rainless air as the gun fell to the pavement with a black hat and black umbrella, all clattering in sync with the thunder as the rain began again. Water streaming down black metal, black leather, and black plastic, the end of the gun barrel barely beginning to smoke as a growl filled the air.   
  
Lightening struck again as two figures fought on the water-drenched ground, rain and blood dancing in the air as thunder sounded death. He had lunged; she had fallen in complete surprise, having no idea where the hell he had come from. In matter of seconds he had disappeared and then reappeared to tackle her. He was on top of her as he bit at her with sharp teeth, white daggers ripping at her throat. She bit back a scream as she tried to get her feet under her pursuer, tried to throw him off as he bit at her skin like a mad dog, blood and pain filling her, rain washing the evidence of her wounds away. Pain erupted in her body as his weight crushed her and he scored a deep wound on the side of her neck, blood flew, her blood ran through rain and death, his teeth ripped her flesh as she tried to find footing to kick him off her. Purple hair cascaded down her snarl as he dug his fingers into her arms, as she brought her leg between their two bodies and sent him sprawling in the air over her head. She glimpsed his crazed eyes, his animal face of pure loss of control and thought, and shivered as she swore at herself for being too confident in what she had to do and was doing.   
  
She was breathing hard, her hair arranged over her forehead as if it was blown through a tornado, the rain leaking down her body as she clutched the wound on her neck with her hand, blood seeping through her white fingers. What the hell was he? He didn't seem human at all, he seemed like some psychopath from some horror movie. His form lay on the ground, heaving with gasps, and after a few seconds she realized he was laughing. Fear trickled down her spine every half a second as she saw her gun and reached for it, shooting him in the chest as pain flew over her body from such a swift move.   
  
Blood flew against the rain as she shot him in the chest over and over again, emptied her clip, reached into her coat for a new one and shot again. He rolled over, knelt, then stood, laughter gone as his white eyes seemed to echo through the darkness, a small smile over his lips as she emptied another clip, the bullets scoring direct hits on his chest but failing to stop him as he began to walk towards her. Fear made her limbs shake, made her heart shudder as she tried to think of any plausible reasons for what he was or seemed to be. She found none but the stories of her child hood, nightmares that weren't supposed to be real. She shot for his face, hit him in the eye, but still he didn't even blink as tissue flew everywhere and left a gaping bloody hole in his right eye socket.   
  
What the hell was he! She screamed inside her head as she tried to push back the panic. He was almost a foot away and she backed against the wall as she looked around to find an escape route, her purple hair covering her one eye as found her back pressed against the brick wall behind her. She found her fingers digging into the brick, her nails bending back painfully as she clutched it.   
  
He smiled as she stared at him with wide eyes, her gun still outstretched, her hand shaking as she shot him in the middle of the forehead, the nose, under his left eye, blood flying into her face as the bullets hit flesh. But he kept coming until he grabbed her hand and twisted it, bones cracking as he twisted it all away around. Her screams echoed with the sound of the gun dropping to the ground once again, going off one more time, before he began to laugh, pressing his ugly mutilated face into hers. Pain rippled through her arm as her other hand clutched it. Brown hair streaked in blood came towards her pale skin as he put his other hand to her throat and began to squeeze.   
  
She couldn't move, she couldn't scream, and now she found she couldn't breathe. Then logic kicked in and she struggled against his gasp as he pressed her up against the wall behind her, her feet lifting on the ground as she choked and wrenched for air that wasn't coming. He pulled her back from the wall by her neck and slammed her against it, her bones cracking as she felt pain erupt in her body. Fear was gone, only the will to survive was inside her now, it pumped through her veins as tears of pain filled her eyes.   
  
What the hell was he! She kicked at him, her good hand grasping at his hand that held her, her nails digging into his skin as she struggled. Blood was everywhere, hers and his mixed, flew through the air as he took her back from the wall and slammed her into it again, her shoulder cracking as she screamed, or tried to, the lack of air making her head spin with pain, rain, and darkness. She felt the back of her ribs crack, felt her lungs scream for air.   
  
Then he let her fall as his grasp fell from her neck. She fell down to her knees gasping for breath, her head back leaning against the wall behind her, the rain dripping down her throat, her neck, leaking bloody trails behind clear water. Her good hand held the broken one as black leather was ripped over her shoulders, blood sliding down her body as she tried to breathe, her ribs broken, making it difficult to do so. "Bastard," she said between breaths.   
  
He smiled at her and reached for her hair, pulling her to her feet by her long purple strands. "I'm not done playing yet," he said, his breath fowl over her face, a piece of her skin dangling from one of his teeth.   
  
She tried not to vomit as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a knife. The hell you are!  In an instant her hand was slammed up against the wall, broken and useless in a matter of seconds as he laughed. Damn!   
  
The rain was coming down hard again and pain was making her head fuzzy as she tried to think, fear increasing as her heart beat angrily against broken ribs. Blackness, she could see it, and then she could see his eyes as he touched her chin and ran his fingers down her neck. He touched the wound he made with his teeth earlier and playfully pulled at the raw skin, tugging hard as he pulled some off. She screamed as pain in pain erupted through her. She saw her death, saw all the regrets she had ever had in her life like images that were merely ghosts mocking her for all she failed to do. Everything was so acute, the raindrops so clear she saw each one as they fell on his skin, on the pavement, in the puddles around them.   
  
Everything was happening so fast. Only minutes before she had been looking for her hat. Ten minutes before she had wanted to go back to the Bebop. Now things had slowed to snail pace, and her life was flashing before her eyes. Death never played fair.   
  
"Do you believe in God?" He was asking her.   
  
She muttered a no.   
  
"What do you believe in?" He asked with curiosity that made her sick.   
  
"Dreams. Life's a dream, didn't you know that?" She asked weakly, Spike coming into her mind, looking at her with those intense eyes before he left. _I thought I was watching a dream I'd never wake up from… _  
  
She could hear Rain laugh, but she all she really saw was Spike. Then everything fell apart. Her heart began to ache and tears sprang to her eyes, not for herself, but for him. It had been so long since she saw him, she didn't like to think about it, she didn't like to remember that she had let him go, that she had been part of his death by not stopping him. She missed him, ever since he had left she had lost something, she hadn't known what it was before and she didn't know now, but she knew it had to do something with the way she viewed life. She had moved on, she had taken on her usual life with Jet, but without Spike in that life, things seemed lost, desolate.   
  
She hadn't realized she had her eyes closed until she opened them, saw the world, saw the people in it in a flash of clarity, shadows of what she would never be, what she would never have the chance to be as she forgot her regrets and welcomed death.   
  
But then things were back to being foggy again and the pain began throb through her faster, harder, ripping her memories apart as life began to fade as blackness took her.   
  
Suddenly she felt Rain's hand loosen from her hair, felt the thump as she fell to the ground, felt her own surprise and relief. Her vision was blurry as she looked up and saw a woman standing in front of her, long black hair trailed in the rain wet but soft looking as Rain growled and lunged at the woman who easily threw him away. He growled again before his blue eyes came back, his human nature coming back with wounds already beginning to heal.   
  
The woman stood protectively over Faye, shouting something lost to Faye as blackness was taking her to hell and back, dragging her through a road covered in needles that pricked all over her body and caused her to bleed. Hell being the real world with pain, bliss being the darkness that held nothing.   
  
She closed and opened her eyes again, the mysterious was woman gone, Rain had vanished into the night he came from, and the rain had all but stopped although her wounds came screaming into reality as the world rang with pain. Her whole being was alone except for her heartbeat and the blood on the concrete below her. She closed her eyes again reluctantly trying to sleep and wash away the pain and blood. She opened her eyes one more time hoping that when she awoke everything that had happened was all a nightmare. But the pain came rushing back, her soft heart growing faint as she tried to hold on to its rhythm. The last thing she saw was another figure coming towards her from the shadows like a shadow himself that was not really there, a man in a uniform with sunglasses, more men behind him as he reached down and checked her pulse. Then she blacked out and she was mercifully taken into the arms of sleep.   
  
  
  
  
_A/N- Aight is sucked right? Anyway didn't have time to read over, sorry it was kinda boring, but oh well. Enjoy the boringness!!!_  
  
_Er and I kinda loss where the italics were when I was converting it from my micro-word to a text doc. _


	3. Awakenings

Disclaimer- Cowboy Bebop is not mine.  
NOTE- THANKS LEXI FOR EVERYTHING!!  
There Is No Pride In Love  
  
Awakenings  
  
Chapter two  
  
The woman with the long black hair watched the rain cease, watched the car that took the purple haired woman away in a big hurry. She watched the man, Shin- the name foreign to her mind for the longest time yet so familiar- look around as if surprised to find the woman still breathing and alive with Rain nowhere in sight.  
  
The thought of Rain made the woman's heart hurt, made her close her eyes and stand on the roof she was on, her black jeans dripping, her gray sweater clinging to her body. She opened her black eyes with a certain sorrow, a certain feeling she wished she didn't have for the murderer. Insecurity masking the feeling of protectiveness she felt towards the woman she had saved.  
  
The gray clouds were clearing, the night sky shining with peaceful clearness as the moonlight glowed on her shoulders, her hair almost to her feet blowing softly in the wind, the black silk trench coat in her arms flowing as she turned from the street the car had flown down to get the woman medical attention as fast as four wheels could go.   
  
She knew that sometime soon she'd be paying the woman whom she had just saved a visit. After all, the clouds had departed, but the calm before the real storm had only begun to settle. The storm coming was screaming to be known even in the silence of pride.   
  
*****  
  
I could say that I never understood why I lived, but that would be lying. I lived because had I not, Vicious would have won and I don't like to loose.   
  
My heart seemed torn, thrashed, painfully alive as I drifted in the thoughts of my mind- ideas, memories that I tried to swim away from but instead found myself drowning with every struggled pull I tried to make.  
  
All my life I drowned in memories...  
  
All my life my past was a chain and collar that held me like a stray dog on a rope.   
  
All my life... And my life wasn't even worth it anymore. My life was the past now. All I could wonder was, where the hell does that leave me?  
  
I ached with a want, a need to know why my past lingered like a vapor trail behind me as I wandered with uncertainty. I screamed to understand why my death had to be part of a past thrown upon me without question, without reason, without answer.   
  
I had never asked to live.   
  
I had never asked to die.   
  
I had never asked to loose so much inbetween.  
  
I never asked to be so goddamn uncertain!  
  
I could see her eyes watching me as I smiled through the blood, the hate, the deaths that I myself caused, still uncertain yet not caring about the questions then, only living, only seeing what I wanted to. She was my dream, she chased away the question 'what am I here for?' and replaced it with 'now I know why I am alive.' But I *never* asked for her to come in my life and yet now I couldn't imagine living without her anymore.   
  
But now I found myself leaving her one more time and I had never asked for that decision either!  
  
I never asked to be reborn into life again. No one ever asked me, no one cared, and neither did I. No, that wasn't true. I didn't *want* to care.  
  
But I did.   
  
And no one cared about that either.   
  
And even then I was uncertain if anyone even heard me.  
  
But I never asked for anything, so maybe that was why I got what I never wanted.   
  
Now I was asking.   
  
'Someone please understand and make me see the reason why.' Never mind that I didn't know what 'why' was, never mind that Julia should have been the answer, never mind everything in the past.   
  
I asked why in the future because the past needed to be cut away.   
  
'Why?'  
  
******  
  
'Why?' The question was simple but the one asking it wasn't supposed to be there.  
  
But who was 'he'? And where the hell was she?   
  
Darkness, that was where she was, and the only thing she could hold onto was the sound of his voice in her head. She grasped onto the echoes of the fading word afraid she was going to fade into the background and loose the only other presence there in the darkness where emptiness and loneliness threatened to throw her into oblivion.  
  
'Why what?' She asked.   
  
There was surprised silence as if the one who asked the question hadn't expected to be answered. Then, 'Why can't I throw the past away?' The words shattered a hidden link somewhere.  
  
Then she was opening her senses and her world was recognizing the pain she only wished she knew how to ignore. Her head screamed, her bones in her right wrist and shoulder cried with unshed tears, and her ribs objected to the breaths her lungs took to keep her alive. Then jade eyes were opening to more than the pain but to a white room with rhythmic sounds of a heart monitor next to the pillow her purple hair was fanned across.  
  
Moonlight shinned from a skylight window above her head and for more than a minute she stared up into the silver stars floating in a sea of sapphire velvet, finding some sort of peace. Then Jet's eyes flashed through her mind- the same color as the sky and she was suddenly sitting straight up in excruciating pain, tearing off the oxygen mask, kicking off the sheets, ripping away the wires, the heart monitor sounding an alarm as the readings lacked a heart to read.   
  
Then her feet touched cold tile and her world was spinning with pain, noise, and the quick beatings of a heart pushing down panic and blood.   
  
"Damnitt," she hissed, her eyes loosing focus for an instant, her knees bending under her, every movement shouting pain and screams. Her ribs felt like cracked glass, her shoulder and arms flailed with spasms, her head echoed sharp edges of needles through her mind as her voice uttered a small gasp.  
  
Then arms were carrying her back into bed, the shrieking sound of the heart monitor mercifully turned off. She rolled her head to look at the one holding her steady as he placed her easily under the covers. He was tall, dark with whisps of blonde hair over his tanned skin at his forehead. His eyes were all green intensity as he moved the wires she had ripped away and placed them in a bunch so he could identify where they went. His slight wired rimmed glasses added to the whole doctor look he was sporting with that odd off green shirt and pants and white coat that hung a little to long to the floor.  
  
"Jet, I need to get to Jet," she said with grogginess and roughness that came with not talking for awhile. She felt pitiful, lanky, weak as he covered her with warm blankets that hugged her, trying to do what an embrace could.  
  
"Mr. Black is right outside, Miss Valentine." The man proceeded to put her IV in. She tried to shake her arm away but it was useless, she may have commanded her body to do something but her body was in too much pain and shock from the last waves of it that it took no heed of what she *wanted* to do.  
  
She needed Jet. She needed him by her side to give her confidence, to give her that feel of safety and protection that came with the fact that he was the only one who waited for her when she came home at the end of the day. He was the only one who cared... But their relationship wasn't *love*, at least not the kind that brought kisses in the middle of the night. Their ties came from a deep within sorrow over one man, over one dream that had passed but not before it had created their lives. What Jet and Faye had now was the sense of knowing one more person understood, one more person knew and would always know what that single man meant, gave, and took.   
  
Spike... She was losing herself to her memories, ignoring the pain, the doctor that reconnected the cords, the sounds of a steady heart monitor, and the shooting star that past over her head. She barely noticed the pinch of a needle when a painkiller was shot through her system.  
  
'What will you do? Throw away your life like it was nothing?' Her words, his image walking away. A sense of emptiness that told her life was cruel and he was unforgiving even until the end.  
  
She shook her head. God, how many times did she have to burn that damn bridge? She closed her eyes, mumbling for Jet, longing for the relaxing feeling of his cool metallic hand touching hers with reassurance before memories chased her back into the darkness of her past.  
  
His voice broke away the nightmares in her mind as her body stretched with pain that was fading with the help of the pain killer shot. "Ya got yourself in a real mess this time, kid." He stood beside the bed casually.  
  
She opened her eyes and sneered at his blue intense starless orbs reaching to see what her reaction was. "I could have done worse." Her voice sounded distant, her throat scratching with dry fatigue.  
  
For a moment his eyes lit with amusement as he shook his head that was still, more or less, bald on top. His beard and what was left of his hair had some grey streaks in it now, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth deeper. She glanced down at the dusted jean jacket he wore now, his hawk symbol on the back in black. He wore a black dress shirt left open so the white T-shirt underneath could be partially seen where the fabric opened. Worn jeans covered his legs, brown work boots with steel tips donned his feet.  
  
He sure looked a helluv alot different since Spike left.   
  
"What happened, Faye?" His voice had gone serious and she turned to focus on his face that stood concerned.  
  
What happened...?  
  
She didn't want to remember...  
  
Rain Falcon, he beat the shit out of me.  
  
She could feel her wounds, felt them as they first cut her flesh as she remembered blow by blow how she received them. Rain, blood, a crimson smile... Pain, so much pain...  
  
She shivered, touched her bandaged shoulder with her good hand, her wrist, her head, her throat... He had bitten her for crissakes!  
  
She couldn't stop the shivers, the uncontrolled spasms of fear she scolded herself for feeling.  
  
God those white eyes, those inhuman white eyes were all she could see, that inhuman breath of death was all she could smell. Then she was shaking, cursing herself for the fear, the utter pale shock that she'd been beaten, bruised, and cut without being able to protest the matter. She closed her eyes tight, bit back the fear, and pounded the bed with her bad hand, hoping that the pain that shot up her arm would take all the insecurities away. She ground her teeth and stared into Jet's eyes that had focused on her face with questioning depths.  
  
"What's it look like? Mr. Falcon had a party beating the shit out of me," she said with a snicker that was more than bitter. Then she could feel that semi crazy, semi hysterical hit her. "I shot him in the friggen face! He still kept coming at me and..." She covered her face with her good hand. Tears, she could feel them moving down her bruised face. She remembered the confidence she had had when she had went after him all by herself, remembered the growing trust she felt when she first saw him. Mistakes, pointless mistakes on her part.   
  
"Faye," Jet said touching her good shoulder. "You gotta calm down, kid."   
  
She wiped the tears away and took a deep breath. She had to stop acting like a two year old, Rain was gone and she was...  
  
Where the hell was she?  
  
She looked around the white room, really looked. To her right was a white wall with a wooden door, on her left was a curtain cutting the whole room in half. A heart monitor beeped on the other side and for a second she had the impulse to draw the curtain aside- to see another person hurt just like her.   
  
"You're in a hospital, Faye." Jet seemed to have read her mind. Yeah, no shit, she thought. She looked up at the skylight, the stars shining down at her as if they'd been watching over her ever since the clouds of rain cleared away.   
  
"What hospital?" She tried to sit up but the drugs were really kicking in and she could feel herself slipping away from her body. She fell back against her pillow softly.   
  
She heard the door open and a man in a black trench coat came walking in. His brown hair swept over steel grey eyes and his face was a tight smile of seriousness. He stepped up next to Jet and shook hands with the older man before staring down at her.   
  
"I see you're doing better, Miss Valentine." He smiled with bleak eyes.   
"Who-"  
  
"Faye, this is Shin, leader of the Red Dragons and you're in their hospital." Jet cut in swiftly as he knelt down and waited for her reaction.   
  
For a moment she stared at Shin who waited patiently beside Jet, silver eyes expectant. When she turned to the skylight both men obviously had expected an outburst. But she smiled bitterly and closed her eyes, laughing at the ironic twist of fate. Funny, Spike died at their hands and she got to live by them.   
  
She opened her eyes, stopped laughing.   
They should have let me die, she thought.   
  
She turned her head slowly to Shin. "Get out." Her voice was drawn, slow, rage-filled. Fire heated her eyes, her soul, her heart. Any effect the drug had on her was gone, pure emotion washed it from her system. She met Shin's eyes, pushed every amount of hatred she could into her own and sneered. "Get out!" she said more forcefully as he staggered back. Whatever he saw in her eyes had startled him. He bowed slightly after regaining his composure and left the room.   
  
Faye sat up, the pain was back full force but she was too angry, too hateful to mind it. She turned to Jet who was saying her name, telling her that she needed to be sensible.   
  
She wasn't really listening.   
  
"Shut up, Jet." Why did she feel so betrayed?  
  
He fell silent but stood with an angry sigh.   
  
She removed the IV, ripped it out again and ripped off the wires. She didn't need any service from a part of Spike's past that had killed him.   
  
"Faye, come on. Use your head. You need this hospital right now." Jet helped her to her feet even as she threw the rest of the cords away. Her purple hair fell over her face and she brushed it away.   
  
"I'm fine, now, Jet. The worst part was getting beat up. The easy part is leaving." She wobbled to a chair in the corner where her clothes were folded on and cursed. They were torn, bloody, useless.   
  
"I brought you new clothes." Jet sighed and rubbed his metal arm over her forehead. "Faye, would ya just listen?"   
  
She shook her head and looked at him with tears, not of pain, not of hate, but of old wounds far worse than physical. "How could you!" She said with whispered horror. "They *killed* Spike! Jet, you let them take care of me and they *killed* Spike! I'd rather be dead than know someone who killed him took care of me!" She shook her head, struggled to gain composure. "God, Jet! How could you! Why didn't you take me away?" Red pain hit her.  
  
He began to answer but she put up her hand. "Not now, give me my new clothes and just go. Get out of here." She looked up at him and he stared at her with an even temper.  
  
"Faye, you don't understand. Rain will come after you again."   
  
Faye shook her head, Rain was the last person she wanted to think about. "Go." She said the word with finality and Jet walked out of the room.   
  
Faye touched the pillow on her bed and threw it. It hit the curtains beside her and she instinctively cursed. She sat down on the bed and stared at her bandaged hands then looked up at the skylight. Stars, they were so free, they lived among life just watching, fading, shining, being, dreaming- like him.   
  
Spike, God he'd been dead for two years and she still hated him for leaving, still loved him for giving her a place to call home and people to call friends. Still admired his courage to face the past she didn't have, to understand the concepts of her life even when she didn't.   
  
Jet came in through the door one more time with a bag. "I couldn't find your coat, probably because you had it with you so I brought you one of Spike's shirts to put over your shirt." He mumbled, she didn't really hear.   
  
He set the bag down on the floor and walked out in silence.  
  
She sat on the edge of the bed, hands trembling, throat choked with tears. She shook her head, took a deep breath, pushed her hair from her face and growled. It had been two years, two god damned years, and she still thought of Spike as if he had just walked out on her life yesterday.  
  
She stood, couldn't stand the standing stillness of trying to avoid emotions that she never really thought about as something truly real until he left and proved that words could sting and feelings could kill. But she had gotten better, she had rebuilt the part of herself that died when he had left. And God, so many people had left her in her life. She just used every absence of a friend to learn to rebuild what was lost, used everything she learned to become stronger, but Spike's disappearance had affected her more than any good-bye. Maybe because he never said good-bye, just walked out the door that was so easy to go through without looking back to even wave.  
  
Stupid idle thoughts that didn't matter- thoughts that didn't change anything so in turn became unimportant. But she had left that behind, she was sure she had anyway. But every time her mind could, it thought of him, though memories had become less frequent, regrets less recurring.   
  
She could thank him for one thing- giving her a past with him. Who gave a damn if he had made life hell, became a competitor in everything she did, never mind he really could have cared less for a mushroom than what he cared for her, never mind all of it. Everything he was, did, said, or thought- it was her past now, part of *her*. Even if she could change that, she wouldn't.  
  
She found herself staring at the curtain in front of her, seeing a certain glow of night sky behind the thin white sheet. For all she had been through, past and present, she just wanted to forget it all, lose herself in something that didn't include thinking, crying, hurting, pretending, or hating.   
  
Before she knew what she was doing she was walking past the curtain and staring straight out a window that held the lights of both heaven and earth. Bright golden lights clashed with silver- buildings reaching to the night that stared at the streets below that sparkled with streetlights, cars, and people. She walked to the window, the heart monitor of the person in the bed beside her touching her heart as if the rhythmic sounds were her own heartbeats. She smiled at the reflection she saw when she stared into the window. She touched a pale face, transparent, bruises mixing with colored lights. Green eyes filled with something like fire but lost in darker depths, white bandages wrapped her forehead, purple hair falling over them like a waterfall.  
  
That was Faye, and she wished it wasn't. She hardly recognized the person who looked back at her, and maybe that was what stung her the most- the fact that she could smile and not know why it sent shivers down her spine when she knew she should be feeling the emotions a simple upturn of her mouth represented. She was alive, wasn't that worth more than a smile?  
  
She turned away from the window, cold with sudden chills. She should be grateful she was alive, grateful the Red Dragons saved her, grateful Jet even came to see her, help her, support her. She should have been relieved, happy, everything in between because she'd lived through death. She should have felt warmed by her own smile... She should have been so many things and she wasn't.   
  
She turned her face to stare into the darkness of the one sleeping in the bed in front of her. Tears blurred her vision for an instant, the green lights of the machines around a pillowed head screaming to her eyes. She was confused, so tired of trying to understand everything. But, she calmed herself, she was moving on, had been ever since she watched him leave. It was just times when she was depressed that he ever came up to put salt on her wounds with memories. She shook her head, wiped her tears away- the hell with ghosts and old wounds. The hell with the hate, the hurt, the hell with everything. She *was* moving on...  
  
Her wounds screamed to her, reality coming back to her, laughing at her for ignoring it while lost in the total blackness of her thoughts. Her head yelled out, wounds, scratches, and every broken bone making her gasp as she stumbled over to the bed of the other patient. She grasped the sheets as she tried to catch her breath, gasped to wince with everything in her that held back the screams, the tears.   
There was movement as the one in the bed moved as if sensing her struggle and the heart monitor's rhythm picked up as the person began to wake up. She tried to turn her head but a spasm in her leg made her cry out in pain.   
  
The person in the bed was probably going to be pissed for her having disrupted their sleep, and knowing her luck he or she was probably a Red Dragon assassin who was going to kill her for her mistake. Just what she needed another worry...   
  
"Damn," she muttered as she shut her eyes tight and tried to wait out the cramp riding up her thigh.   
  
Then there was a gruff voice, a voice that seemed like it hadn't been used for the longest time. It was so soft that Faye wasn't sure she heard anything. But then it came again and the pain in her leg suddenly didn't matter.  
  
She looked up with shock at what she was thinking...  
  
"Faye," Spike said again before he passed out.  
  
*****  
  
Rain Falcon walked into his apartment cursing the woman who had stolen his prey from right under his nose.   
  
"You've got to stop this, Rain!" She had shouted, black eyes smoldering with emotion. He hated to see her hate him, but she had most certainly had when she had stared him straight in the eyes, threatening him with powers, abilities that he knew were stronger than his own.   
  
"Stop what?" He had asked with choked rage.   
  
"Stop the hurting!" She had cried, tears mixing with the rain on her face.   
  
He had hurt so much, he knew he had. Once he would have cared.  
  
He didn't now.  
  
"I like to hurt!" He yelled back with a sneer. "I don't like to loose my prey!" Snarls of hate, snarls of contempt.  
  
"I was your prey once," she had said, voice cast down.   
  
"You were the only one who got away," he had said back, the feeling of power washed away by tiredness. He hated to think he still loved her, still wanted her even though his reason for killing the women was because he couldn't kill her. But no, the reason he killed was because he wanted to, *needed* to more than he needed to have sex, or drink himself to death. It *bothered* him that he couldn't kill her even though he *wanted* to, *needed* to. It bothered him that she made him want to change what he wanted and needed to fit her needs, needs that had once been mutual until his had changed.   
  
The cuts on his face had healed by the time he had escaped back to his apartment, though his coat was ripped to shreds, bullet holes decorating it. Blood, his, hers, was all over him, and thanks to the dark no one had noticed.   
  
The woman with the green eyes flashed through his mind and he snarled. He may have let one woman go but he would not let another. Whoever the purple haired woman was, he was going to finish what he left undone. And so help him, he'd kill anyone who stood in his way.   
  
The woman with long black hair flashed through his mind and he punched the nearest wall sending cracks up to the ceiling.   
  
"Alexa," he whispered hoarsely.   
  
And if she got in the way of killing the purple haired woman...  
  
If she got in the way he'd finally have an excuse to kill her...  
  
  
A/N- so ok, I know its short but I kinda only have an email typing machine, not a computer, so it had to be short. Thank you Lexi for posting this for me. Sorry that it took so long... I've been away working... More soon!! 


	4. Leap of Faith

Disclaimer-Cowboy Bebop isn't mine.  
  
There Is No Pride In Love  
  
Leap of Faith  
  
Chapter Three  
  
She looked out her apartment window, the lights of the city reflecting on her face as she turned away to sit at her desk where her computer glared at her. She could feel a part of her give into feelings as she stared at the red dragon on the screen, felt the insecurity that came with that logo that had haunted her for years. She clicked on it with her mouse and typed a few commands that hacked into the main system. After a minute or so the data was done loading and she typed in the command that demanded the medical records of the latest patients cast to the infirmary.   
  
She scrolled down and found the picture of the woman she was looking for. Her information was underneath. Faye Valentine. Broken arm, wrist, dislocated shoulder. Wound to the neck, various blows to the head, cuts and scrapes scattered over the body. She read further and sighed with relief when Faye's latest check up stated she would recover without problems.   
  
Alexa sat back in her seat and stretched slightly reaching for her coffee. She sipped lightly staring at the green eyes on the screen through the steam of her cup. So the woman Rain was after was named Faye Valentine. Pretty name- one Rain likely didn't know- and now that the face had one it made the puzzle of how to protect the woman a little more complete. After all, Rain never gave up on unfinished business and neither did she. Now she was one more step ahead.  
  
Alexa took another sip of her caffeine and tried to wash away the weariness that had taken its course on her the last few days since she had last seen Rain. And Rain, God he was the last *thing* on earth she wanted to think about. But Alexa faced the truth in her mind even if she didn't realize it. To protect Faye she would have to confront Rain and stop him by herself. And *not* finding any way to guard Faye would be murder- if Alexa could prevent Rain from getting to Faye then it was her responsibility to do so. And if she didn't, she was just as responsible for that death than Rain.  
  
'Where were you for the others he killed?' A voice asked her angrily.   
  
Alexa shook her head knowing she had been responsible for those deaths that Rain had taken just as much as he was. She'd watched from a distance, not wanting to confront him again. Not after living with him and watching him change... Fear had stopped her cold and stole the innocence with undying guilt that followed her everywhere. And yet fear shouldn't have been an excuse.  
  
She hated to admit that she was still scared of him. But that fear was slowly going away and saving that Valentine woman had cut her ties with him or whatever control he had over her, forever.   
  
'Forever...' The word resounded in her thoughts like a broken record. But any power he had over her was gone, she knew she had a right to reassure herself and not think otherwise.   
  
'Forever...'  
  
She sat back. Was it really forever? Of course it was, why was she doubting herself? She took a huge swallow of coffee, the liquid burning down her throat as if in reprimand.   
  
'Forever...'  
  
As the last echo sounded through her mind she was almost certain that forever wasn't as long as she thought.  
  
*^*^*^*  
  
Coffee. He needed coffee. The cigarettes just weren't cutting it anymore. His head hurt, his eyes burned and the damn cigarettes weren't doing a damn thing about the weariness that was setting into his body at the moment. Faye was alive, thank God, but she was pissed as hell, and God knew he didn't have the patience to make her see reason about the situation at the moment without *some* kind of stabilizing drug in his system. He'd waited three days for her to wake up, went through more packs of cigarettes than he did in a whole year, and finally, when she was alive enough to the world to become coherent she was a hellcat, and to top that off the cigarettes weren't working!  
  
He smiled to himself tiredly. But what, more or less, was he expecting from her truthfully? Certainly not a sound little princess sitting prim on her throne with manners and etiquette with a warm welcoming to the ones that saved her life. No, that really wasn't Faye, was it?  
  
He needed caffeine desperately. Nicotine wasn't enough for his body that cried 'Sleep, need sleep. Sleep, damn you!'. He rubbed his eyes and threw down the cigarette in his hand, glaring at it after he crushed it with his shoe as if it betrayed him in some way. "Cheap ass drug," he muttered as he rubbed his head with his metal hand. He sighed and leaned on to the door of Faye's room, closing his eyes to relish in the feeling of satisfaction when sleep was on the verge of taking him. The infirmary hallway was rather peaceful from where he stood and peace was what he needed.  
  
"Mr. Black," a voice said softly.  
  
He opened his eyes and yawned. "Yeah?" Then he froze when he saw who it was and pushed his hands deep into his pockets. Shin stared at him with stern trust and Jet stared back with an almost glare of indifference. He wasn't angry with the man, Spike's death wasn't his fault directly, but he really had no desire to be *friends* with Shin either.   
  
Shin seemed to sense Jet's cold shoulder and yet he pressed his back against the wall next to Jet and shrugged slightly. "How's she doing?" Shin asked as if he didn't already know. He had seemed to know everything before hand, why play dumb now?   
  
Jet shook his head trying to sort through all that Shin knew, knowing the Dragon leader might know more about the Bebop crew than Jet himself did. After all, Shin was the one who called Jet to tell him Faye was in the hospital. It was Shin who knew his number on the Bebop. It was Shin who knew that Jet was *even* on the Bebop. It was Shin who had known Faye's name even when she didn't have any ID on her. And it was Shin who knew that both Jet and Faye had even known Spike, which was why the Red Dragons were even bothering to help to rescue, treat, and protect her.  
  
"Why are you helping her?" Jet had asked when Shin had explained Faye's situation. Jet hadn't been mad like Faye but he had certainly wanted nothing to do with the Syndicate that stole his friend away.  
  
"Because Spike would want me to offer my services to his friends." And with that Shin had left the vid-screen blank, sending the coordinates to where Faye was being held.  
  
And now here he was- in the whiter than heaven hallway of the infirmary of the Red Dragons.   
  
"Faye's Faye, there's no cure for that." Jet shrugged, grabbed another cigarette in his pocket and lit up with a smile.   
  
Shin seemed to smile as well, but only faintly. "Mr. Black, there's something you and I must discuss." He stood straight and looked seriously at the older man.   
  
"There's alot of things we have to 'discuss'. How about starting with how the hell you knew the things you did?" Jet inhaled and exhaled smoke that was supposed to calm his nerves.   
  
"Things I knew?" Shin asked a little confused.   
  
"Yeah. Like how you knew it was Faye you rescued when I know for a fact she had no ID whatsoever on her?" Jet threw the cigarette down. He felt anger bubbling up inside him. Fine that he didn't hate the Red Dragons personally. Fine that he could put the past behind him, but when that past started nosing around where it wasn't wanted... Well thats when things weren't 'fine' in Jet's book.   
  
Shin was silent for a long moment. "I don't feel I need to explain myself." He tucked his hands in his pocket and Jet nearly decked him.   
  
"What the hell do you mean 'I don't feel I need to explain myself'?" Jet said standing to his full height. "It's my business to know who knows about me. If it concerns me then anyone whose in on it better explain themselves, whether they want to or not."Jet took an intimidated step towards Shin.  
  
Shin stood his ground and in a less-than-neutral voice he spoke sternly. "Mr. Black, I have just rescued your friend and I have also offered her the finest protection I could. Understand that Miss Valentine and now *you* have more than declined my offer on my offense. And whether you are important to Spike or not, I will *not* offer twice. So think carefully on what you want to do or say." Shin's eyes narrowed. "I will not be given orders from someone I helped. As far as I am concerned you and your lady friend take too much for granted." He stepped up to Jet who was shooting darts with his eyes knowing that he *was* acting ungrateful, but he had a right to know how Shin knew all he did!   
  
"I would also like to remind you that you are surrounded by Red Dragon agents and at any moment I could call them to take you to our prisoner cells shall you get out of hand." Shin softened his voice then. "I don't want to do that, but if you keep arguing with me and demanding things I feel I have the right not to answer I am afraid that you will take the battle to a more physical ground. So please, Mr. Black, try to be reasonable."  
  
'Be reasonable...' The words rang through him. Hadn't he been reasonable when he asked for a simple explanation? God damnitt, why didn't people listen to what was in front of their faces nowadays? He was being 'reasonable'! *He* wasn't hiding behind mystery like a coward.   
  
He needed caffeine.   
  
"Where's the cafeteria?" Jet moved past Shin without an answer.   
  
"Mr. Black we do have to talk," said Shin and Jet nodded in agreement- they *would* talk... After he had caffeine.   
  
*^*^*^*  
  
(Spike's Narrative)   
  
I could feel consciousness slipping from my grasp. I was so close, so damn close to seeing, feeling, and so help me, living as well. I wanted to live, God, anything to get me out of the darkness that was becoming hot with memories of all that was and wasn't. What I did and what I failed to do. My sins, my undying guilt for all that blood stained on my hands. I couldn't die, Julia's memory wouldn't let me rest until I did, and all I wanted was to get away from the darkness.  
  
'She told me to go,' I thought bitterly. 'She *wanted* me to go.'   
  
I felt hurt, betrayed even when I knew she had seen reason where I hadn't. I owed my friends my help. They needed it for some reason, and I had the responsibility to give it.   
  
I saw her, the purple haired harlot that had been the pain in my ass ever since we met. My eyes, they strained to see her face, the white ivory of her skin, the piercing green of her eyes, her pink lips pale of color.   
  
"Faye," I whispered. Was that my voice? I could barely hear it. God, I wished that I could just bounce back to living like I used to.   
  
"Spike? Oh, God, is it really you?"   
  
Tears- she was crying- just like she had when I walked out the door. Those tears had been there, unshed, deeply felt, and I hadn't cared. I still didn't. But to see her face, to know she cared that I lived even when I didn't give a damn meant something to me.   
  
My vision was blurry but I was becoming more awake, more alert. My body, it was stiff, I felt as if someone had taken me through an ice age and back with the slight pain it took to move my lips and speak. "Faye," I said again. I couldn't say anything else. I mean what else could I say? 'Hey, I'm back. Miss me?'?  
  
My vision was clearing, the oxygen tubes in my nose hissed as I took a deep breath, my heart monitor beeped next to me as I looked around. A hospital room surrounded me. How the hell did I get here? There was a window with bright lights like colored stars that filled the room with light to my left. The colors filled her face with sparkling rivers running down her cheeks. Then I saw them, the bruises and cuts that hung on her ivory skin like crimson and purple grimaces. The white bandages that wrapped her forehead were like lightening to my system.   
  
Someone had beaten the shit out of Faye and I wasn't sure I cared.  
  
I tried to smile though my cheeks felt as if I hadn't smiled in a century. "What happened to you?" I asked with the same casualty I had had before, back on the Bebop. My voice was still a little raspy and I could feel the sand paper my throat had become.   
  
  
Faye sat back on her heels next to my bed and grimaced in pain. Her right arm was wrapped from shoulder to hand, and the blue hospital shirt she wore hung off her pale form that glistened with fear.   
  
Of me?  
  
"I thought you were dead," she said as if she were afraid someone would hear. She had avoided my question... I tried to shrug but found I could barely could move my arms or legs, much less my chest or shoulders. Tired, weak, that's what I felt all at once. Frustration, anger, added to the conjuring of my emotions and made me feel kind of hollow. "Well, I'm not, so don't act as if it's my funeral, okay?" I said as I coughed. I grunted as I moved my hand just for the sake of moving *something*. Progress, little as it was, felt good.   
  
"Stop acting as if I care," Faye said in her same old haughty tone. I half smiled. Now, this was the Faye I knew.   
  
"Well, I guess I was wrong then," I said trying again to shrug.  
  
But now, first things first, I thought. Water! Hell, I needed something to drink. Then after that I needed food, good, greasy, hot, spicy, yummy food! Then, my brain would be working, and I could figure out where the hell I was.  
  
"Faye, would it be too much if I asked you to get me a drink of water?" I asked trying my best to move around. No go, a twitch here and there was all I got.   
  
Faye smiled ironically. The tears were only vapor trails now and she stood with a grimace. "Sure Spike, after two years, I suppose I could get you a drink." She limped away with clenched teeth, the tightening in her jaw obvious to me even when she walked away passed a curtain on my right.  
  
Had she said two years? Two years!  
  
No, she had to have been teasing. I couldn't have been out of it for two years. No, I wouldn't believe it, it just wasn't possible to be asleep that long. Sure, a couple times I had had a couple drinks and slept a few days afterwards before, but I've never slept for two years!  
  
Faye limped back, her eyes burning with determination as a glass slopped clear, refreshing liquid. My throat suddenly felt all the drier. "Damn, I had to open two closets before I found the bathroom," she muttered.   
  
"Poor you," I said sarcastically.   
  
Bad move.   
  
She glared at me then smiled that I-got-something-up-sleeve smile. "How badly do you want this water, Spike?" She asked coyly.   
  
I groaned. Damn.  
  
"Oh, that bad, eh?" She smiled and motioned to bring the glass she held in her hands closer to me. "And I suppose you want me to hold it while you drink like a little bitty baby?"   
  
"Faye, c'mon." I was in desperate need of water. My mouth had gone so dry I felt as if I could sand a splintered piece of wood just by swallowing.   
  
She smiled and shrugged, brought the cup to my lips, gave me a little sip before all the water was tipped over onto my chest and chin. Cold as hell frozen over water froze my nerves as I gasped. Too much air, too much at once! I felt myself gasping as my lungs constricted with pain. "Damn, Faye," I said breathlessly. I coughed, and the pain in my chest increased. I felt I couldn't breath and the heart monitor picked up the increasing rate of my heart.   
  
Black spots, that's what I was seeing. Actually it was *all* I was seeing.   
  
Then I felt warm hands on may chest, my cheek as Faye struggled to talk to me through turmoil. God, I swear to God she was trying to kill me!   
  
"Spike, relax." She said softly. No yelling? No swearing? Not even a complaint? Odd.  
  
I felt her hands put pressure on my chest as it rose sharply when I tried to gain the breath I lost. God damn it, I came back from the dead only to die like this? If I died now I blamed it all on Faye.   
  
"Spike, just *relax*. Breathe softly, that's it." She sounded as if she knew exactly what she was doing. The hell if she did!  
  
I tried to calm down, like water, fluid. Got to keep it like that, right? I asked myself. Calm...  
  
The heart monitor slowed. The pain receded like waves. I opened my eyes that I hadn't known I had closed and stared into green, green intense worry. Worry for me, Faye? Why?   
  
"I'm fine," I said sharply. The hand on my chest fell away and she turned from me.   
  
"Yeah? Like I care." She stood up straight and glared down at me.   
  
"What?" I asked. "Its not my fault you spilled water on me." She glared at me harder. "Well it wasn't," I protested. And then I smiled. "But hell, you haven't changed."  
  
She stared down at me then. Face blank as slate. "What does that mean?" She asked emotionlessly.   
  
"You're the same Faye I remember," I said yawning. My eyes were incredibly heavy as I strived to keep them open.   
  
"But I don't know if that's a good thing," I muttered.   
  
"Well, you're the same old down on his luck dumbass. *That* was never a good thing to me, Spike." She began to walk away past the damn curtain. Did she think she could hide? I saw the anger in her eyes, it was too late to hide.   
  
"Faye, it was my decision to leave. There was nothing you could have done or said that would have changed what happened," I said, sensing I needed to explain to her that what I had done had been reasonable.   
  
"Ya know, Spike. I never really thought there was." Then she hid behind that damned curtain and I was drifting in sleep that I didn't want to face.  
  
*^*^*^*  
  
She sat on her bed, glared at the clothes in the bag and ripped away the blue hospital gown, throwing on her jeans, white shirt and black boots with a viciousness that surprised even herself when the pain in her body seemed irrelevant to her emotional feelings and barely bothered her. She felt frozen, God she felt as if someone had just removed her emotions and spilled them on the floor at her feet.   
Then she began to cry. For no reason the tears came. All that despair, the grief, the uselessness, the hurt, the pain, the guilt that tinged anger, everything from the past came blasting from the part of her she had covered with mind bending band aids.   
  
And Spike...  
  
He wasn't dead! He wasn't a ghost, he wasn't a hallucination, he was real. She touched him, felt his heart beat wildly. She heard his voice, saw his face. Those same awkward eyes had stared back at hers.   
  
Spike...  
  
She stared at his yellow shirt and slipped it on without a thought, tying the ends at her waist as if it were her old red jacket. Then she moved painfully towards the door, limping as the pain in her body registered again, her emotions draining away. Her fingers grazed the doorknob and then she froze.   
  
What if she left and when she came back he was gone? What if she had only been dreaming?  
  
She pulled her hand away from the door as if it burned and she shuffled to his side of the room. She could hear her heart beat in her ears as she prayed it all wasn't something she thought up.   
  
When she turned the curtain she sighed with relief. He was still there, though sleep had taken him, and he lay with his eyes closed, peacefully gone away to dreams. She smiled at the wet spot on the front of the sheet that covered his body. Well, he had deserved it though the moment he had a attack much like a panic attack, she had gotten a little worried. But she knew if he hadn't died the day he left than nothing that small was going to kill him.  
  
So the last two years, Spike had been here, in this bed. He had acted as if he hadn't been up for awhile but there was no way he had been out of it for two years, was there? She shook her head, if he'd been able to, he would have gotten that water himself, why didn't he?   
  
Hospital, obvious weakness, acting as if he hadn't seen the world for the longest time... Pieces fell together and suddenly she was certain.   
  
He *had* been out of it for two years!  
  
She walked towards him and sat on the edge of his bed. So the dreamer had wakened again. The lunkhead, why didn't he just die instead of putting her through the anxiety of hoping that after every adventure that should had killed him he would make it through?  
  
But no, she didn't really want him to die, did she?  
  
She touched his hand, angry that he was alive after she had been trying to cope with his death for two years, two longer than eternity years... But she was happy, she was grateful that he was alive. Two more years, she'd go through it all if that meant he was alive.   
  
She didn't love him, or maybe she did and didn't want to admit it. But she *cared* for him, and that was enough. It was more than most people got from her, and she was satisfied with the fact that life hadn't given up on him even when she had.   
  
She removed her hand from his and stood, walking towards the window, and when she looked at her reflection she saw the reason why she smiled and she didn't have to worry about the emptiness she found in her eyes- there wasn't any.  
  
*^*^*^*^*  
  
Alexa walked in the front doors and pulled off her sunglasses. People stared at her, she had been wearing sunglasses in the dead of night. But she didn't mind the eyes on her, she wore those stares as if she were used to them.   
  
The woman at the front desk looked up at her and smiled less than enthusiastically. "Hello, may I help you?" she asked, her voice high and stuffy.   
  
"Which floor is the infirmary on?" Alexa smiled softly, knowing the answer even after she asked.  
  
"Visiting hours are over for tonight, I'm afraid." The woman shrugged. "Come back tomorrow around nine."   
  
Alexa faked disappointment. "Really? Ma'am, may I ask a favor?" Alexa twisted a strand of her blonde wig in her fingers and bit her lip.   
  
The woman looked up expectantly. "Depends on what it is."  
  
"I've got to see my aunt tonight. See, I'm leaving to go home to Venus tomorrow morning around six AM. I didn't get the call that she was here until a couple minutes ago. And I'm afraid that in her condition she might not make it to the next time that I am able to come back here." Alexa tried to smile but let her lips curled into a sad frown. "Please, please, make this one exception."   
  
The woman looked up at her skeptically. "What's your aunt's name?"  
  
Alexa had been prepared for that. She had made sure to look up a recent patient's name that had had a critical condition other than Faye who didn't have family. "Madeline Shelron."  
  
"One moment please," The woman said as she typed the name on the computer set neatly on her mahogany desk. Alexa looked around the large room that had doors leading everywhere. The ground was a black marble tied with white whisps of white everywhere. Pillars of white marble outlined the walls, and glass doors led here and there like a maze. Then Alexa stared at the large golden dragon logo above the woman's desk and shivered inwardly.  
  
She'd remembered everything, every last detail of this room. She'd only been seventeen when she had first seen it.   
  
"Miss?" the woman asked.   
  
Alexa focused her attention to the woman behind the desk. "Yes?"  
  
"You may go, I've gotten permission to permit you to the infirmary on the tenth floor." The woman smiled with pushed warmth.   
  
Alexa smiled, thanked the woman with praise and shivered when she made her way to the elevators. She really hated people, she hated getting *close* to anyone. She saw talking as the first step in that closeness. She despised men more than anything though. She was far from gay, that wasn't the issue, but it was the fact that every man she loved had turned on her. Rain had merely been the last straw.  
  
She stepped into the elevator and pressed ten, the metal doors closing behind her as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her sunglasses. If Shin was here she couldn't risk him recognizing her. She pulled the blonde wig on her head tighter and tried to make sure that it was on right. Then she waited.  
  
Time to think, she really didn't need it. She'd been thinking all night. But time needed to be filled, silence needed to be ignored and thinking was the only thing she could do it.   
  
So she had to befriend Miss Valentine, she had to get Faye to trust her. But that meant she'd have to trust Faye and trusting really was Alexa's strong suit. What if Faye didn't *want* to trust? Then- What if Shin finds me?  
  
She shivered, God she was doing alot of that today. Where had that come from? Shin, hell he just had to be right there in the middle of everything. She didn't want to think about *him*, or who he was connected with. She didn't want to think of Rain, or any other man who betrayed her and hurt her, and made her afraid of the people they represented. It was because of all of them that she could not look into another man's face without seeing deceit and feeling fear.   
  
And here she was, back at the source of all that fear.   
  
Why? God, she wanted to stop wondering that. There was just so many why's and what if's in her life. She just wanted to forget it all, loose it all to her mind, or maybe to oblivion.   
  
There's no such thing as oblivion, she thought. She watched the light of the elevator scale reach to ten, and then that soft ring vanished all thought and the only thing on her mind was what she had to do. The doors opened. She stepped into the hall, the white empty hall that echoed cries, heart machines, small whispers- different noises of a sleeping hospital. She knew the room Faye was in and she made her way to it without hesitation.   
  
She walked to the front desk and told the nurse she was here to see Madeline Sherlon. The woman nodded her approval behind the desk, motioned to Sherlon's room and went back to whatever 'important' phone call she was taking which consisted of what time the woman was being picked up, what movie they were going to see, and who else was going.   
  
Alexa turned the corner to where Faye was and stopped when she saw Shin standing outside her door. "Damn," she muttered. Whatever she was expecting, she wasn't expecting him there. She took a deep breath, not knowing what the hell she was going to say as she stepped forward with a quick check that her glasses were on securely.   
  
The lights were dim as she stepped up to him and made to go into the room, hoping in vain that he might just let her go.   
  
"Excuse me, Miss?" he asked, as she touched the door.   
  
She sighed and tried to shake the initial shock of his voice when it hit her. She took a deep breath and faced him with an innocent smile. "Yes?"   
  
"Who are you?" He crossed his arms and stared at her as she moved uncomfortably under his gaze. Time that hadn't changed it's intensity.   
  
"Nightengale Townshed," she lied.   
  
He stared at her as if sizing her up, and she could feel perspiration break out on the palms of her hands. His gaze recognized something in her but she could also see uncertainty. It had been a long time since they last met, it was obvious she wasn't who she used to be, and if he did see something in her that sparked memory, she was almost certain in that moment he wouldn't put two and two together. She sighed with relief.   
  
"What are you here for?" He asked skeptically.  
  
"I'm a friend of Faye Valentine," she said softly.   
  
"No you're not," he replied firmly.  
  
Alexa tried to smile. "No, you're right, I'm not her friend, but my mother is her friend, and I am here because of parental orders." Alexa smiled then with sheepish innocence. She made it obvious she was intimidated by Shin but also a made a point to show no fear. After all, what should she fear from a stranger?  
  
"You'll have to wait until tomorrow." Shin uncrossed his arms and went to grab her upper arm to escort her out.   
  
"Wait!" She cried desperately. "Please, sir, I am here because I was sent to find Faye. I've tracked her down from planet to planet for over six months trying to get to her. Unfortunately, I have to leave Mars tomorrow because I have to..." Alexa struggled for a reason. "File for a job or two on Venus where my father lives to help him support the recent medical bills for my mother who is dying." Alexa shook her head. "My mother is dying, I have to talk to Faye, I have to talk to her." Alexa tried to spring tears to her eyes, the nerves in her stomach electrifying some hidden emotions as she put her all into the act. She could hear the hysteria in her voice and thought 'good'. "I promised my mother to talk to Faye for her and now I might have promised without a cause."   
  
She knew what Shin saw now. A pitiful blonde girl who was trying to fulfill one wish that her mother had asked of her. A girl who wanted nothing more than to please and protect what little family she had. Alexa knew she was playing on Shin's own feelings for his family and knew he would not refuse her.   
  
"How did you know she was here?" Shin asked.  
  
"I called Mr. Black a few minutes ago. I got his number by doing a lot of hacking. But I got it, please don't hold the hacking against me, I'm at my last straw." Alexa shook her head, and tried to shake away her tears. Well at least the hacking part was true. After getting Faye's real name it had been easy to find out all about her and her friends.   
  
Shin merely nodded as if making a decision he knew he was going to regret. "Very well, you may go. But if Miss Valentine is asleep you are not permitted to wake her up."   
  
Alexa smiled and wiped the tears away. She could hear her heart beat as she stepped forward to hug him, feeling his surprise as she clung to him for an instant, the familiar feeling swirling around them as she let go too soon.   
  
"Thank you," she said softly and walked into the room.  
  
*^*^*^*  
  
Faye had her back against the wall, her eyes closed, arms crossed as her head bobbed up and down sleepily. Spike slept in front of her as she stood watching over him, trying to stay awake, but failing in the end.   
  
She heard the door open and then close, her senses waking immediately as she stood straight with pain shooting up through her body. Sleeping against the wall had been one of her less intellegent ideas.   
  
She looked over at Spike who was still sleeping and sighed, making her way to whoever stepped in. But the woman came around the curtain before she could make a move and Faye froze.  
  
Flashes of Rain, of the blood, of the pain, and then of her savior who now stood before her.   
  
"Hello, Faye," she said softly, her eyes dark brown, almost black, her voice sweet and accented with something sharp yet soft. Faye saw a blonde wig in her left hand, sunglasses in the other as the woman stepped forward and smiled.   
  
Faye felt strangely at ease with the woman and she relaxed the muscles that she hadn't known had tensed. "Hi," she said with sleep in her voice. The beginning of the sun's rays slipped in the window dimly and illuminated the brown in the woman's hair as she took a look over at Spike.  
  
"Who are you?" Faye asked looking closely at the woman. Close up she looked frail, almost child-like, and yet she had stood up to Rain without fear, without hesitation.  
  
The woman turned to Faye. "My name is Alexa, you may call me Lex, almost everyone does." The woman smiled warmly.   
  
Faye lay back against the wall lazily. "Why did you save me?" Bluntly put.  
  
"Shouldn't I have?"   
  
"No, that's not what I meant." Faye rubbed her head with weariness.  
  
"You should be in bed, you know that?"   
  
"Yeah, I know that." Faye was bitter. She didn't like feeling so helpless. "'Should' doesn't mean I have to be."   
  
"Its close enough," Alexa said smiling. "But I suppose I wouldn't like to feel so helpless so I won't pressure you to sleep if it makes you angry."   
  
"Gee, thanks." Faye sighed and limped over to her side of the room with pain, feeling somewhat protective of Spike. Conversing right over him wasn't perfect to keep him sleeping, though, Faye figured, he could probably sleep through a tornado.   
  
"Are you here because of Rain?" Faye asked and gathered Spike's shirt around her arms shrugging off fear.  
  
Alexa lost whatever smile she had. "Yes, and no."   
  
"That really doesn't give me anything to work with." Faye ran her fingers through her hair. She thought of Rain and shivered with fear. Immediately she felt shame. She was a damn coward.  
  
"Its ok to be scared of him. I am." Alexa admitted looking at Faye and reading her emotions.   
  
Faye looked up sharply. The woman in front of her had faced off with him, how could she be scared? "But, you-" Faye began, wounds screamed to be justified.  
  
"I'm not scared of facing him, or even of who he is. But I am scared of what he's done, and what I couldn't prevent," Alexa said more to herself than to Faye.   
  
Faye didn't understand but decided not push the idea further. "Why are you here?" Her voice worked steadily.  
  
Alexa looked at Faye for a moment and then spoke with a lost expression. "He could come now, he could break all the Red Dragons' defenses." Her voice was distant, her eyes smokey as if she could see it all happening. "He could break in here, kill everyone in sight. Bullets wouldn't stop him, knives, grenades- everything would be useless."  
  
Faye shook her head. She had witnessed it first hand. Her gun had done nothing to stop him, he didn't seem to *feel* the pain. But that didn't mean something more powerful couldn't stop him. Alexa had to be wrong somewhere.   
  
"I see you doubt me. But I'm right, Faye, I'm right about him." The woman didn't plead for her to understand, just merely stated the truth. "You were the only one who ever got away from him, Faye. Rain isn't one who will give up that easily. He wants you dead, and he'll stop at nothing to make sure he gets what he wants."   
  
Faye cleared the lump in her throat. "How can he be stopped?"  
  
Alexa stared at her. "I'm not sure, I am seriously not sure." She looked over at the curtain and shook her head. "He's not invincible. A grenade *could* kill him, but he's just too fast. He could out run the blast before it got within three feet."   
  
Faye felt cold all of a sudden and she could see those white eyes in her mind. They were haunting her like a ghost and God help her, she couldn't banish the memory. "What's going to happen then?" Faye asked staring at the floor. She tried to stay calm.  
  
Alexa went over to the window on the other side of the curtain. Faye limped painfully over next to her and watched the woman's expression, though the woman wore none. The sun was coming up, the buildings were glistening like liquid gold. Faye glanced at the sky, the streets. *He* was out there somewhere... And she wanted him dead.  
  
Alexa turned to Faye, brown eyes intense with seriousness beyond her years. Old, wise, and fearful. Then she opened the window and let the cool breeze in. "He's here," Alexa said looking around.   
  
Alexa had known there were men on the balcony above Faye's window and as she glanced closer she could see the blood dripping from it. The Red Dragons' full proof protection had been breached.   
  
Faye could feel anger and fear mix.  
  
Alexa looked around outside and saw movement on the roof while she talked. "Faye, you can't tell Shin who I am. Pretend you were asleep during my whole visit." Faye could feel fear like she never knew. Damn, she didn't *want* to be scared.   
  
"You didn't know I was here," Alexa said looking up at the rooftop.   
  
Faye nodded. "What now?"  
  
Alexa glanced over her shoulder. "Back away from the window, Faye."   
  
Faye took a step back, her feet numb with something she couldn't explain. Alexa's eyes were cold, narrowed, predatorial. "What happens now, Lex?" Faye asked, her voice steady, her heart beating wildly. Her arm felt cold fire burning in her bones, and she winced. She sat down on Spike's bed, her wounds screaming reality in her body.  
  
Alexa smiled over her shoulder. "You trust me." And with that she jumped out the window, the blonde wig and sunglasses clattering to the floor.  
  
Sun replaced the woman as if she had never been there. Faye could only stare with wide green eyes, before she gasped and turned away.  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N- what do ya think about that, eh?? :) thanks again Lexi for everything!!  
Sorry about the grammar through this whole thing. I rushed through it, and on this little email thingies its really really hard to go back and correct. Aight thanks for reading!!! 


	5. No Escape

Disclaimer- Cowboy Bebop isn't mine.   
  
There Is No Pride In Love  
  
No Escape  
  
Chapter four  
  
(Spike's Narrative)  
  
I opened my eyes hoping to find that waking up had all been one big nightmare. I wished that I was somehow with Julia, somehow really and truly dead in my own mind as well as in the eye of time. But opening my eyes meant I was opening my heart back to reality where the wind burned old wounds like salt on cuts. I didn't want to know reality then, just the surface of what I wasn't ever going to have was just enough to keep me from wanting anything but death. But death I could never have, and I accepted that, I had a hard time not to.   
  
Light flooded my vision and the first person I saw was Faye. She sat in a chair, a bandage over her forehead and faded bruises shoving roughly through her pale smooth skin. She was sleeping; head bouncing as she snored quietly, and when I looked into her folded hands I saw she carried a gun lightly with slender white fingers.   
  
I don't know why the scene hit me, why her part in trying to protect me made me inwardly shake, but I did know that for once in my life I felt safe, no edge to the life that never wanted me.   
  
My heart monitor beeped next to me as I took a deep breath and tried to sit up. My legs and arms were tired, weak, and it irked me that I could barely move. It hurt. Yes, working tired muscles wasn't the most delightful thing in the world, but my determination made me careless of what my body screamed to me in rivets of pain. I sat up with great effort, and grunted as pain shot up from all directions. Not an angry pain, but a protesting pain from all my limbs that had fallen in sync with the rhythm of sleep.   
  
Faye must have heard me shuffling around but didn't move to help me. She sat back with a tight smile on her face as I squirmed to get comfortable. "Stop staring," I said with an edge. "It makes you look as if you're some kind of psycho." I shifted and smiled with old humor.   
  
She flashed a grin and shrugged. "I wouldn't tease me if I were you. You're the one in the bed that can barely move. I, on the other hand have another cup of ice cold water in which I have no problem in dumping over your head." She smiled with the same ignorant smile and I laughed, grateful that she didn't treat me any different than before. It was as if time hadn't come for us and I had been with her the whole time I had been away.   
  
"Jet?" I asked looking around the room filled with sun. White, so Goddamned heavenly white, and there Faye sat black jeans with a black tank, wearing a yellow shirt over her shoulders. I had to blink before realizing she was wearing one of my old shirts.   
  
"Jet's out looking for some food; he was here for a while but got hungry." When she noticed me staring at her she gave me a skeptical eye and growled. "What?"  
  
"Is that my shirt, Faye?" I could feel the little part of my old temper rocket towards its peak.   
  
She looked down at the yellow shirt as if she just noticed it and fingered the collar with a quizzical look. "Hmm? Oh yeah," she said laughing. "I guess this is your shirt." She smiled at me and rested her elbows on her knees, leaning in closer to give me an original mocking smile. "But you're really in no position to ask for it back, now, are you?"   
  
I growled. "Faye, you really are a pain, you know that?"   
  
She smiled and crossed her arms, putting her gun in a shoulder holster she wore inside my shirt. "Of course I know that, Spike." But I sensed a hesitation in the reserve of her words. There was something in the hint of her voice that made me stare at her, really see her as she yawned and stretched. Something was different about her and I didn't know what.   
  
"Faye, I got you a cappuccino. I didn't know if you wanted anything else," a voice said around the corner of the curtain. I recognized Jet's voice and felt a sense of relief that I hadn't known I needed until calm solitude washed over me and relaxed my tense muscles. Jet walked around the corner, his blue eyes soft, a little older as he gave a Styrofoam cup to Faye, a message passing between the two before Jet noticed I was sitting up.   
  
"Hey, bud!" Jet exclaimed, his eyes smiling the way they always did when the man was happy.   
  
"Yo," I replied waving a weakened hand. Faye stood, gave a Jet a look, then walked out of the room, glancing at me briefly before walking past the curtain, opening and closing the door as she left.   
  
"It's been awhile, Spike," Jet said sitting down on the chair Faye had vacated. He smiled and put down a bag he had brought in with him. I could smell the delicious scent of meat and subconsciously my mouth watered.   
  
"Food?" I asked, feeling my stomach growl with heated hunger.   
  
"Eh?" Jet looked down at the bag he brought and smiled. "I don't know if you can eat that kind of food yet. I mean they've been feeding you out of a tube for about two years now." Jet smiled and rested his elbow on his knee, prompting his chin on his metal arm. "Your stomach might not be able to handle it."   
  
"Jet, I need meat," I moaned.   
  
He sighed. "Can you try to focus on what I am saying instead of thinking about your stomach for a second?" He looked more than serious and I tried to think of him and what he was saying that way but all I could think about was what kind of meat he had in that bag that smelled so damned good!  
  
"Do you know where you are?" Jet stared at me.   
  
"No," I said semi-conscious of actually speaking. I wanted food, and Jet had food. I just wanted a little piece, just one little piece of juicy food. My stomach growled in agreement.   
  
"You're in the Red Dragons Headquarters."   
  
Suddenly the growling in my stomach stopped and all I could hear was the beating of my heart. "What?" I asked trying to convince myself that I hadn't heard what Jet just said. I had run for so long to get away from this hell hole! I had loyalty, but no ties to this god forsaken place! My blood chilled as my jaw clenched and I stared at Jet, waiting for him to reply.   
  
"You heard me."   
  
"Yeah, I guess I did," I said staring away from Jet, eyes unfocused as the past played in my mind and in my eyes. It was all glossy, as if reality didn't exist and memories did. Julia, Vicious, Shin, Lin…. I didn't want to remember anymore. Thinking of the past reminded me what I didn't have but should have had, and what I desperately wanted but no god wished to give me. "So what the hell am I doing here, Jet?" I asked with the same coldness I always chose to have with him whenever he tried to discuss my past before.   
  
"Shin is the leader now. As far as I know he brought you here and has kept you alive these last two years." Jet looked at my face, tried to read what I was thinking, feeling, but I knew that all he saw was a blank wall with nothing written on it except for perhaps my name and the initial man I was.   
  
"I'm not sure if I should thank him or kill him," I muttered to myself as I put a hand to my forehead, my fingers stiff, my arms cracking with the lack of use. Then understanding that Shin was alive made me open my eyes and stare at Jet. "Shin's alive?"   
  
Jet smiled. "You're a little slow today, bud."   
  
I smiled and closed my eyes, leaning my head against the back of the hospital post. "Well, that may be." Then I wanted a cigarette, and it seemed just in that moment that the last time I had had one was too long for my tastes. "Cigarette?" I asked Jet without opening my eyes.   
  
"I'm not sure if you can have that either." I heard a shuffle and then the crinkling of the plastic. Then I was holding the long slender drug that proved to me that just by holding it I was holding a little piece of clam that I didn't have at the moment. "But its you're funeral if you die suddenly." Wouldn't that be my luck?  
  
I opened my eyes as Jet handed me his lighter. I lit up as if I had yesterday, as if I didn't really *need* the cigarette, just wanted it, and smiled with contentment as the smoke invaded my senses, wiping out the smell of the hospital. "So, back at the Red Dragons, huh? I never thought…" I trailed off lost in a reverie of everything that had happened in the walls of the syndicate that had made, taken, and broken everything I was and never was.   
  
"There's not much to say, and we haven't seen each other for so long." Jet muttered to himself.   
  
"What happened to Faye?" I asked, maybe not out of concern but definitely out of curiosity. I pictured her the first night I woke up, saw her ugly bruises, her obvious pain that caused her face to constrict when she walked- something that seemed much better than before. Despite the fact that I hated the way Faye looked everyday, she had looked more than bad when I first saw her. But she looked healthy and stronger today, her purple hair brushed neatly, the bruises faded on her face, her limp not really a limp but a stumble in step. "Better yet," I said focusing on the smoke I blew out through my mouth. "What happened to the both of you in the time I've been sleeping?"  
  
"Wanna hear a semi-long story?" Jet asked staring out the window behind him.   
  
I puffed at my cigarette. "I got time."  
  
"Me too."   
  
~`~`~`~`~  
  
Faye walked down the corridor of the hallway, her purple hair dusting over her face as she walked down to the center lobby and out the door. The steam from her cup whispered through the air, and the tears in her eyes blurred the images that it made in her mind. Spike's face, Spike's eyes, Spike everywhere, and he was alive, it wasn't the images of a dead man anymore and after the six days since she first found him to e alive everything had turned into a semi reality that made her hallow inside, hallow in chest where the loss had been hidden deep inside her.   
  
Then her mind veered to Alexa and she saw the woman jumping out the window, wondering to the gods of the universe if she was live or dead. Faye forced herself to keep her head high, trying to keep herself believing that her protector was alive watching over her, keeping her safe from the man that scared her from deep inside the walls of her soul.   
  
She walked out of the Red Dragons, her hair blowing the wind as she stared at the passing cars. She took out her key and walked to the curb where she had parked her Red Tail, smiling at the fact that a police officer was standing by it trying to find a license plate. "May I help you?" Faye asked sweetly coming up beside the woman and leaning on the yellow glass of her ship.   
  
"You're parked in a no parking zone, miss." The officer stared at her through blue sunglasses and Faye immediately got the initial impression that the officer was all high and mighty on her little sleigh of dominance. A regular power tripped ego was the firth thought that came to mind and Faye converted from playful-annoyed mood to bitch-annoyed mood in a matter of seconds.   
  
Faye looked at her ship incredulously. "Well, so it is." She looked back at the officer and smiled innocently. "Damn, I didn't really think you police officers were observant enough to notice. Guess I was wrong." Faye smiled and popped her pod open. She moved to step up into it, black boots shinning on metallic silver as she stepped up and was pulled back with such force she almost fell splat on the pavement.   
  
"You have to pay a fine, miss." The police officer was rather angry Faye noted with satisfaction. Through the sunglasses she could see the woman trying to remain civil.   
  
"Really?" Faye seemed to think this over then glared at the woman with narrowed green eyes. "Well, I don't want to," she hissed and with that jumped into her ship and inserted the key, closing the hatch before the woman could scramble into her cockpit. She looked at the woman and stuck out her tongue as she ignited the engine and blasted off, turning on her radio and blasting it loud. She smiled and tapped her fingers against her dash board as the bass shook her windows, the blue open sky welcoming her as she let freedom take wing and pull her free from the confusion of thoughts.   
  
Then the red flashing lights started and she was being called through the music. "Stop and land or we will be forced to fire!" Came a distant voice and Faye cursed as she turned down her music to concentrate. Then, smiling, she increased her speed, knowing one speed racer wasn't going to take her down. She sped down the horizon and then the bullets started hailing from behind her and she dodged. Two years ago she had been novice at flying, now she was an expert and dodged and countered attacked better than the greatest pilot.   
  
She grinned at the sky, turned on her music loud again and went in and out of buildings, laughing at the stupidity the cops were using, firing at her in the regions of a civilian area. She shrugged as a side of a building exploded into red angry flames and proceeded to out fly the single space cruiser.   
  
She looked back and then felt instant impact as bullets hailed at her from the front. She cursed angrily as a space cruiser came from the front and another from the side as she forced her ship downward out of the range of fire. So now there were three fighters, she could handle that, but she wasn't sure if a civilian plane could handle the bullets and suddenly felt the guilt of having to be responsible for the human lives lost in a small scrimmage.   
  
She moved to open sky then and led all the ships that had been pursuing her in the city to an open field fight. They were talking to her again but her music was too loud for her to hear them. When she glanced in the rear view mirror she could feel her heart stop. She immediately shut off the music and cursed incoherently. There were about twelve ships on her tail, all had ceased shooting as she turned her ship around and stood suspended in mid air as a voice broke into her intercom. "We know who you are, Faye Valentine. We have records on your debts and would like you to come with us quietly. We demand you turn yourself in quietly."   
  
Faye growled. So the miss priss of a cop knew how to identify ships without the ignition key somehow. Well that was fine with Faye, she didn't give a damn about the odds, she actually liked it when things were stacked against her. It worked more to her side of luck then anything. She armed her guns and opened fire, reckless, feeling indifferent, not caring because it seemed to her that she had faced death once and nothing compared to it was anything like what real fear she had felt when she stared the Grim Reaper in the eyes.   
  
They opened fire back and she felt her ship rock back and forth as bullets penetrated her shields. She fired and laughed as she did so, feeling crazy, feeling calm, feeling anything but the fear she should have been feeling. She fired, shot three ships down, and worked on the rest. Emergency lights flashed but she didn't care, she was gaining momentum with the rockets and bullets that cut through the cheap ass cruisers. Four went down, unable to fight.   
  
Faye began to sing and hum to the soft music she had turned down and smiled as she raised the volume one more time. Her right engine took a critical hit, but she moved support fro her left into the damaged area and got a pretty good balance as she continued to fire. Four more ships left the battle, one more to go. She smiled and knew even with the red flashing around her she could take this one. She blasted her music to its peak and moved to charge. She pressed the trigger to fire, and she spat nothing.   
  
"Damn!" She hissed as she hit the trigger again. Nothing. She was out of bullets and rockets. The cruiser fired and she could feel the impact of every bullet as she tried to dodge with her minim access to agility. She could see the men inside the cockpit and cursed seeing the woman with the blue sunglasses smiling as they moved in…  
  
Bullets fired from no where and Faye glanced over her shoulder and saw a sleek black space fighter coming straight for her. She didn't scream only tried to dodge it, but its pointed nose caught her right engine and she felt the force fling her foreword. She hit the dash board with her head and she could feel the pain echo through her brain as she spun in the air, half her engine flying into pieces as the lights in her cockpit flickered and stopped. Her ship staggered in the air and through the blinding red pain she tried to keep it a float.   
  
The black ship destroyed the space cruiser and red angry flames were all that was left of it when Faye raised her head. Through black spots of her vision she saw the black ship coming towards her again and she braced herself, but it lost its speed and came up beside her as her ship staggered in the air. It shot out safety wires and hooked them onto her ship as it came up along side her. She tried to see her rescuer and found only black loving unconsciousness when she tried to see through the silver mono-pod.  
  
~`~`~`~`~  
  
Alexa sat, her black hair covering her face in shadows as she squirmed to break the thick chains that bound her. They were too thick for her to break, too tight for her to shake free, but she had rubbed her wrists against them for five days and finally got her wrists to bleed enough for her to get enough on her hands to slip them off painfully. It would have been easier if she didn't heal so quickly, if after every scratch her skin didn't mend together and became whole again, but after five days of persistent pain and rubbing the wounds became raw and unable to heal. She guessed she would have scars for more than a couple months after it all was over.   
  
She leaned against the wall, gasping in pain as she twisted her arms, throwing her head back as the single blade through her chest stuck through her body, the tip hitting against the wall behind her as she forced her hands through the small opening he had left for her. The blade moved and she grimaced, her eyes leaking tears she had been holding back since he started torturing her. With one last effort, pull and twist she broke her wrists free, and the chains that had bound her wrists clattered to the floor.   
  
She sighed and breathed deeply as the smell of her blood all over her sickened her. She took a breath before looking at her torn wrists that were covered in old and new blood and growled with hate and pain. The skin was already healing, but the pain was more intense than even the wound the sword from her chest made. She pulled at the hilt of the damned silver blade and pulled, her chest caving in with pain as she hissed, pulling hard and efficiently as it clattered to the floor, blood leaking out of her as she screamed. Even as she fell foreword on the ground, she could feel the gap in her body disappearing and she sighed as the pain echoed away ever so slowly. She then worked on her bound feet that were bound in the same chains that had bound her wrists and took the knife to them. With a couple quick slashes she broke free and stood, her body aching and tired as she stood in the empty room of a mad man. Nothing lay on the wooden floor, or on the wooden walls. The only thing that stood alone in the room was a single table covered with pictures of Faye, herself, and many of his other victims he had recently killed.   
  
// "It's been awhile."//   
  
His voice echoed in her head as she walked over to the photographs and remembered how she had gotten where she was. In his insane world of pain and hate…  
  
//"Not long enough."// She had replied. She had jumped out Faye's window, landing on the balcony of the room below her, seeing him on the roof twenty stories, cursing as she jumped to the next balcony, climbing until she had reached the roof, thanking the gods that she was in the older building of the Red Dragons, knowing the newer building was sleek without anything to grasp on from the outside.   
  
Then she had stood before him, anger pulsing through her at the site of the blood on his hands. He had smiled, his eyes blue, so blue, the same blue of the summer mornings they used to share together. His eyes turned the pure white of intense anger and he smiled as he stepped towards her. //"You don't mean that,"// he had said trying to hide the fact there was pain in his voice.   
  
Once she had loved him, once she had wanted him to love her. Once upon a time. Somewhere in-between sex and the abuse, his love had turned wicked and somewhere along the line she had lost all hope of a happily ever after. She had wanted to make it work, had tried, but she didn't want to wake up and see him staring at her, angry because she didn't get up before him to make breakfast. She didn't want to feel his slap against her skin for talking to another man. She didn't want to be anything other than the woman she was. She didn't want her relationship to turn into a revision of her past. She didn't want to be used and abused again. She'd gone through it once, never again.   
  
//"I mean that with every bit of my heart."// She had tried not to cry, but her tears had turned her vision into a swimming pool of pain and memories.   
  
//"I loved you once."// He said softly.   
  
//"Once- that was long ago."// She let the wind take her hair and wash it around her face.   
  
//"I wasn't like this before I met you."// He had looked at his hands with his inhuman white eyes. She had felt the guilt wash over her and shook her head, tears escaping the corners of her eyes. No he hadn't been like that until they had had sex, and when his strength had began to slowly rise she had known that something had happened to make him like she was. Guilt made her as condemned as he was, and once again *they* had screwed her again. Even after running away from *them* they still controlled her life, and she only blamed one person- the same person she had trusted as much as she had loved Rain. She had shaken her head then, not wanting to think about *him*.   
  
//"You knew that you weren't normal. You never confided in me about it. I loved you too much to care."// He had turned from her then to look out at the sky. //"Was that my folly? Trusting in you?"//  
  
She had felt her sobs rip her throat and shook her head. //"No, it was mine."//  
  
Then he had turned back to her and drew his gun even as she drew hers. //"Guns won't work."// He had said without emotion.   
  
//"I know."// She had replied.   
  
And then he had shot and so had she. The blood flew past his shoulder and she felt the tranquilizer hit her in the heart. He had been prepared and she, on the other hand, had not been. He had walked up to her when she put her gun down and smiled, the white shinning with triumph. She had felt the drug slowly take effect on her body, though she could heal fast enough, drugs tended to remain her system longer than usual. Weariness was taking over her and she could see the black spots playing over her vision as she tried to remain standing.   
  
//"You were careless."// He said, his lips against her ear as he walked behind her and held her shoulders. He kissed her neck and she forced herself not to flinch. Everything went gray as she tried to hold onto reality.   
  
//"You didn't have to tell me, I already knew that."// Her voice had sounded so distant.   
  
//"I love you, Alexa."//   
  
//"I hate you."// She had hissed before she fell back into his arms and lost consciousness. When she had awakened, he had been sitting at the table looking at the pictures. Despite herself, she had groaned and he had turned his blue eyes soft and caring. The man she once loved stared back at her and in her semi-drunken state it made her smile.   
  
//"Rain.."// She had whispered then stopped when she realized the situation. When she tried to move she had found she was bound and screeched at him for him to let her go. He had only smiled as he walked and picked up the sword he had had lying in the corner of the room. He licked the blade and his eyes turned white and she had inwardly shivered.   
  
The blade had found itself in her chest before she could even react.   
  
Pain, cold and heated had shot through her and she had screamed shamelessly. He had retracted the blade and run her through before she could finish the first scream and she had screamed again and again as the blade claimed her body more times than she could count. It hurt, hurt deeper than any wound he inflicted upon her to see his face so full of hate. It hurt so damn much and as the blood rain down her legs to the floor and onto red rimmed reality she had cried, not for him to stop but for all that she had lost.   
  
He didn't speak as he ran her through one last time, his eyes glowing with rage, his mouth grim as she stared up at him, pain all her body was, inside and out as feelings consumed her and made her die with everything that should have killed her. And he had changed back to the real Rain she once knew, he loving Rain whose tears fell on brown tanned cheeks, for her, for him, for all they had once shared. He had touched her tear streaked face, kissed her lips, and then eyes turned white again and he pulled her head back as she shut her eyes tight, feeling his hand trace her neck, her windpipe underneath the pale skin. She wasn't scared, didn't fear death, but knew if he pulled one last time she would be free, guilty for all that she was leaving behind, but free, so free..  
  
And then he had kissed her neck, nipped lightly and got up, moving from her. The window on the wall to the left glowed with city lights and he stared out, his reflection watching her own in the clear window. He didn't want to kill her, and yet he wanted to hurt her, and for five days she had gone through the kind of hell only torturing books had recorded.   
  
Alexa stood now and stared at the pictures, growling as she flung the table to the side of the room, causing it to clutter in splintered pieces to the floor. She could feel her heart break as a picture of her and Rain holding hands on the beach fell at her feet. She picked it up, put it in her pocket and turned to the window, smashing it with her fist, the shards of glass falling in slow motion. Blood splattered its last bit of resistant on the ground that would take no more and she turned to kick open the door that lead to a hallway of the dusty old apartment building Rain had used to live.   
  
Grasping the photograph in her pocket she flew down the hallway, jumped the ten flights of stairs and landed with a thud, her heart beating with love, hate, and adrenaline. With one swift motion she kicked open the front door and was home free. But then she saw Rain's ship coming in for a landing, his ship hauling Faye's red Tail, and Alexa suddenly felt all energy leave her. No matter what, her fight to escape was far from over.   
  
  
  
  
  
A/n- Sorry I didn't write in so long, I didn't have time to look this over. ::my broken record line that Shelley keeps on laughing at:: Ciao. Hope y'all liked. 


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